Here’s another scandal that needs a name, preferably without a “-gate” suffix. Again, I’m open to suggestion.
While the real attention was deservedly on the testimony of Richard Clarke on one end of Capitol Hill yesterday, Medicare actuary Richard Foster had some interesting things to say of his own.
In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Foster followed up on earlier reports by telling lawmakers that he shared the accurate cost estimates for Bush’s Medicare plan with the White House and the president’s budget office months before the congressional vote, but that the administration withheld that information from lawmakers.
While Foster doesn’t know if any laws were broken as part of the administration cover-up, a few Dem senators seem to have an opinion on the matter.
Roll Call is reporting that several Senate Dems are “charging that criminal laws may have been broken when a former Medicare official ordered Bush administration cost estimates withheld from Congress.”
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft alerting him to two federal criminal laws prohibiting the withholding of some information from Congress.
The foursome believe that former Bush official Tom Scully may have broken those criminal laws when, in June 2003, he allegedly threatened to fire Foster if the actuary told Congress that his estimate was $139 billion more than the one prepared by Congress’ own independent scorekeepers, the Congressional Budget Office.
Scully has acknowledged withholding some information, but has sharply denied threatening Foster.
The Senate Democrats note in their letter that current law requires fines or five years imprisonment for “whoever corruptly, or by threats of force, or by any threatening letter or communications influences, obstructs or impedes … the due and proper inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House or any committee of either House or any joint committee of Congress.”
Given that definition, and given the threats made against Foster — even in emails — it certainly sounds like some administration officials may have crossed the legal line with this cover-up.
Fortunately, some reporters still seem to care about this mess. In this week’s issue of Newsweek, Jonathan Alter labels the scandal the “Big Medicare Con” and describes the controversy as a “clear example of dishonesty and, yes, corruption at high levels.”
As for Bush himself, there are only two possibilities, both bad. The first is that he never learned the true cost of one of the major policy initiatives of his presidency. If so, he was incompetent. The second, more plausible, alternative is that he simply chose the lower, more convenient number and didn’t have any problem with the honest figures produced by the bureaucracy’s getting “deep-sixed,” as they used to say during Watergate.
You might think this is standard operating procedure in Washington. It is not. Every White House sends the press secretary out to spin the numbers that emerge on a weekly or monthly basis from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other agencies. But applying political pressure to cook the numbers themselves is a true scandal.
The Bush administration now has an old-fashioned credibility gap. If numbers are released saying that the economy is perking up, why should anyone believe them?
Why indeed.