From Marketwatch (subscription required):
“The Bush administration has spent millions of dollars in the past two months on its campaign to overhaul Social Security, narrowly skirting laws that prohibit spending of taxpayer funds to indirectly lobby Congress.
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and more than 20 other administration officials have blanketed the country since early February, delivering more than 100 speeches in 37 states in an effort to rally the public behind Bush’s Social Security plans.
Although no hard figures on costs are available, rough calculations show the White House and other agencies have spent at least $2.2 million on the campaign so far.
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has been asked by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to investigate the costs of the pro-privatization effort. Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee have also asked quietly for an accounting, according to the Washington Post.
Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, asked the GAO to determine whether “the Bush administration has crossed the line from education to propaganda.”
Federal law prohibits spending any public funds for publicity or propaganda designed to support or defeat legislation pending in Congress. (…)
Bush himself has spoken at 25 events in 20 states on the topic since his State of the Union address in early February. According to press reports, Bush’s audiences are carefully screened to exclude those expressing disapproval of his plans.
Twenty-two other administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Treasury Secretary John Snow, three other Cabinet secretaries and four top officials at the Social Security Administration, have been on the road talking up the need to overhaul Social Security.
All told, officials in the White House and other executive agencies have delivered 120 speeches in 37 states. The Bush administration is well on its way to its goal of visiting 60 cities in 60 days with the Social Security reform message.”
I don’t know about you, but I resent having the President spend my tax dollars lobbying for his Social Security proposal. I also mind this (from the same article): ” “He’s devoting two days a week to it,” said White House spokeswoman Martin.” That’s not two days a week working on Social Security issues; it’s two days a week traveling around giving speeches about the plan he has yet to put forward. And I mind those 22 other officials who are doing the same thing. It’s not as though actually running the federal government leaves one with a lot of free time. It’s not as though there aren’t other problems to deal with.
If that weren’t enough, there’s also the fact that I, along with the rest of the large majority of Americans who do not support the President’s approach, would be barred from attending the speeches he is spending my money giving. (How he intends to convince people when he bars all those who don’t already support him from coming to his speeches, I can’t imagine.) I think it’s cowardly not to face those who disagree with him, but unconscionable to use our money to pay for speeches we will only be allowed to attend if we share his views. He’s welcome to do that if he’s spending his own campaign funds, but he should not do it on my nickel.
***
Marketwatch explains the basis for their cost calculations:
“The administration won’t say how much the Social Security campaign has cost.
A White House spokesman said the costs of the White House’s efforts, including travel, are not disclosed to the public. A Treasury Department spokesman said the sums expended by his agency were “minimal.” The Social Security Administration said it would look into the costs of sending three officials to 10 states .
One part of the total cost can be estimated. At an estimated cost of $60,000 per hour for Air Force One, Bush’s 18,850 miles of travel to 23 cities and towns to lobby on Social Security have cost the Air Force about $1.8 million so far.
The White House has estimated in the past that staff costs for out-of-town events run between $22,000 and $59,000 per day. White House staff costs for Bush’s 13 days out of town would thus total between $286,000 and $767,000.
Other costs of a presidential trip can be substantial. Typically, other planes accompany Air Force One, bringing needed security, communications and transportation equipment and personnel. Auditoriums must be rented and outfitted for the presidential visit, including extra security and secure communications.
Some costs are borne by others.
For example, a spokeswoman for the Qwest Center in Omaha, Neb., said the city spent about $70,000 on traffic and security arrangements for Bush’s Social Security event in early February.
Cheney has delivered four speeches on Social Security in the past two months. His plane costs the Air Force about $11,000 an hour to operate, with total costs of his trips estimated at about $160,000.
Treasury Secretary John Snow “flies coach,” his spokesman said. One or two aides, plus security, accompany Snow on trips. Snow has delivered 10 speeches on Social Security in five separate trips.
Four top officials of the Social Security Administration have delivered 42 speeches, sometimes as many as four a day.”
There are also complicated questions about the legality of all this, which basically turn on the question whether the President or any of his assistants have violated the ban on using tax dollars for ‘propaganda’. ‘Propaganda’ has been interpreted fairly narrowly, but I gather there is some question about whether what Josh Marshall has called the Bamboozlepalooza tour has crossed the line.
Ok, this stinks, but it’s just $2.2 million – chump change if it’s not going in someone’s pocket. I’d complain more about the president wasting all that time he could be using to try to make us safer, but then again it’s just as well.
I’d complain more about the president wasting all that time he could be using to try to make us safer, but then again it’s just as well.
There’s also the question of propagandizing which, even though monetarily it’s petty change in the grand scheme of things, makes my skin crawl.
Sure, that’s part of the stink.
I dunno. I mean, leaving aside whether any of us agree with a policy this President, any President for that matter, decides to push forward, isn’t his/her job to try and drum up support for said policy?
What if he was out trying to drum up support for a higher gas tax?
Of course, keeping those s/he’d need to convince out of the speeches, that’s wrong.
Oh yeah – $4.2 million/year is what it takes to keep the Voyager probes going. And the administration wants to cut that so we can spend trillions on a trip to Mars.
I mean, leaving aside whether any of us agree with a policy this President, any President for that matter, decides to push forward, isn’t his/her job to try and drum up support for said policy?
Sure, but I don’t think that’s exactly what’s happening here. If Bush were flying around holding an open dialogue with the populace I’d say you were probably right; given the parameters of his so-called “Town Hall meetings”, though, I think what we’re seeing is something completely different.
…I think what we’re seeing is something completely different.
right. he’s doing a grass-roots base-first campaign. get The Base fired-up, get em chattering on radio call in shows, in op-eds, at the end of the bar, etc.. word-of-mouth.
This just in:
He reportedly stole several of those worthless I.O.U.s the government keeps in a file cabinet labeled the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for my eventual bamboozling.
His defense will be that the I.O.U.s don’t actually exist, so how could they be stolen?
Now, I must vomit.
Phony issue. While I agree that it’s stupid to hold closed meetings in different locales across the country, it’s not unprecedented. Clinton held town meetings but with pre-approved questions only. It’s also a tradition for presidents to have an agenda and to take actions to advance it. The winner has the mandate.
I hate W as much as the next guy, but every president has to try to sell their programs somehow. I don’t think it makes sense to complain about this.
The one that bothered me was using social security administration money to try to sell lies about SS insolvency.
Even there I tend to think about how much fun it will be for the next Democratic president to be able to get away with this stuff.
Charles: prescreened questions are one thing — I’d want to know, for instance, whether they were screening them for obvious lunacy or political conformity. (As a person who occasionally gives talks, and talks that are a lot less likely to bring nutcases out of the woodwork than the President’s, I can sympathize with the desire to prescreen.) Forbidding people who don’t agree with you from even attending a speech that they are paying for is another.
Clinton held town meetings but with pre-approved questions only.
a) See hilzoy’s point on the distinction between pre-approved questions and pre-approved people.
b) What, to your mind, would cross the line between government salesmanship and propaganda?
The winner has the mandate.
I hope like heck that at some point we’ll start (return to?) using the word “mandate” in a non-trivial way.
pre-approved people
It doesn’t quite scan correctly, but I started singing Sly and the Family Stone.
italics begone!
always get too excited when the punchline comes up.
Hilzoy,
How can you not expect him to have pre-approved people? In this day and age it is just silly not to consider it an option.
Didn’t any of you take the time to watch the people interrupt the GOP convention? That would happen everytime he ever spoke if they didn’t do some kind of screening.
If people behaved more civil their could be more civil
disucssion.
Clinton held town meetings but with pre-approved questions only.
Also note that Clinton frequently fielded skeptical or confrontational questions while no potentially challenging questions pierce this bubble. Clinton also appeared on stage with congressional opponents to actually discuss the issue. At one apprearance he even shared the stage wih Sen. Rick Santorum (no love lost there). The current President only acknowledges a differing viewpoint in order to set up a straw-man.
If people behaved more civil their could be more civil disucssion.
This is exactly backwards.
This very blog provides a model whereby you need not wait for people to become more “civil” to have a civil discussion. You set ground clear rules and those who violate them are chucked out and everyone understands why, but you purposely invite those with opposing opinions to the discussion. Otherwise, you have a built-in (and IMO lame) excuse for never opening up the discussion and each town hall meeting or its equivalent is little more than partisan political masturbation.
It’s also a tradition for presidents to have an agenda and to take actions to advance it.
If he’s spending the money only talking to pre-screened people who already agree with them, exactly what “advancement” is taking place?
Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, asked the GAO to determine whether “the Bush administration has crossed the line from education to propaganda.”
Man, things like this are maddening. Here’s something that might have caught readers’ attention a little better…what if…
“Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, stated yesterday that “the Bush administration has crossed the line from education to propaganda”.”
Why don’t Democrats ever say even slightly impolite things when they’re trying to emphasize that the Republicans are corrupt? If you don’t sound like you think it’s a big deal, Rep. Waxman, then why should anyone else?
smlook: How can you not expect him to have pre-approved people? In this day and age it is just silly not to consider it an option.
How do you mean? If you mean that everyone who gets into a Town Hall meeting to see the President must have passed a security check, just in case they’re a terrorist or an assassin, that’s stringent; but what Bush’s coterie appear to be doing is simply ensuring that no one who has political opinions that differ from the Bush administration can get into a “Town Hall” meeting – and as I trust you would acknowledge, one can oppose the war with Iraq and believe Bush to be a lying disaster area of a President without being either a terrorist or an assassin.
“It doesn’t quite scan correctly, but I started singing Sly and the Family Stone.”
The red one, the red one, the red and red and red one…
Not quite as diverse as the original, but times change.
smlook,
If Bush hadn’t surrounded himself with a bubble for the last four years, and had honestly engaged people with opposing views, there might not have been as much interest in disruptive protest at the convention.
Such tactics are mainly used when other communication channels are seen as blocked off.
Frank, what makes you think a Democratic president would be able to get away with it?