{"id":3681,"date":"2005-03-07T12:01:09","date_gmt":"2005-03-07T17:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3681.html"},"modified":"2005-03-07T12:01:09","modified_gmt":"2005-03-07T17:01:09","slug":"your-tax-dollars-at-work-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/your-tax-dollars-at-work-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Your tax dollars at work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pulling together much of what we’ve already heard, the AP reported over the weekend on Bush’s Social Security “war room<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

A new Social Security war room inside the Treasury Department is pumping out information to sell President Bush’s plan, much like any political campaign might do. It’s part of a coordinated effort by the Bush administration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As near as I can tell, there are at least four irritating problems with the White House’s newest toy.<\/p>\n

One, they’re spending our money on this little adventure. As the AP put it, the Social Security “war room” is an “internal, taxpayer-funded” initiative, churning out propaganda, and staffed by veterans of the Bush-Cheney campaign or the Republican National Committee.<\/p>\n

Two, as Atrios noted<\/a>, this sure sounds illegal. Indeed, the Bush gang has used public funds to generate propaganda more than a few times now, and in each instance, non-partisan investigations have indicated that they’re playing fast and loose<\/a> with legal restrictions.<\/p>\n

Three, when Harry Reid created a “war room” for Senate Dems and the Republicans were beside themselves with indignation<\/a>. Apparently, they’re the only ones who get to create these projects.<\/p>\n

And, finally, as Billmon<\/a> reminds us, there’s Dick Cheney’s promise<\/a> that Bush’s presidency would bring about the end<\/i> of war rooms.<\/p>\n

“The days of the so-called war room and the permanent campaign are over. This president and this administration are going to change the tone in the city of Washington.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I guess that’s one of those Bush promises that’s no longer “operative.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pulling together much of what we’ve already heard, the AP reported over the weekend on Bush’s Social Security “war room.” A new Social Security war room inside the Treasury Department is pumping out information to sell President Bush’s plan, much like any political campaign might do. It’s part of a coordinated effort by the Bush […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}