Kautzman’s AP GO PO Blog

Bush’s order too late to impede most earmarking by Congress

Sacramento Bee
February 6, 2008

The following editorial appeared Sunday in the Sacramento Bee.

In his State of the Union address, President Bush promised “unprecedented” reform of congressional earmarking. That’s the practice through which members of Congress sneak in pork-barrel spending projects that have never received a hearing, never been debated and are not in the text of a bill.

Bush has signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to ignore all earmarks that are not in the text of a law. That’s fine; Congress should debate these projects in the open and hold a public vote. But this effort comes a little late in his presidency. It was also more than a bit lame, considering that it won’t take effect until October 2009, months after he leaves office.

Earmarking is hardly new, but the real problems with the practice were ushered in by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, after Republicans took control of the House in 1994. According to the Congressional Research Service, earmarks that year totaled 4,100. By 2000, they had risen to 6,100.

But it was during the Bush era, with Congress and the presidency in the hands of one party, that earmarks really got out of hand. By 2002, earmarks totaled 10,500, rising to a record 15,500 by 2006, more than tripling since 1994.

What changed? In addition to the traditional practice of steering earmarks to home districts, members of Congress targeted projects to out-of-district lobbyists and private firms that contributed to their political campaigns.

Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., is an example. After San Diego defense contractor Brent Wilkes organized fundraisers and contributions, Doolittle helped win $37 million in earmarks from 2002 to 2005 for Wilkes’ firm for technology the Defense Department hadn’t requested. This had no benefit for constituents of Doolittle’s district.

In some cases, this practice edged into bribery. Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., was convicted of taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors in exchange for inserting earmarks into bills.

When Democrats won the House majority in 2006, they promised reform. They eliminated about 10,000 earmarks that had been proposed by the previous Congress for the 2007 budget. But that welcome change is proving short-lived. While earmarks dipped to 2,700 in 2007, they’re getting out of hand again – rising to 11,700 for the 2008 budget year. And Democrats are using loopholes to flout the spirit of new rules that are supposed to require earmarks to be in appropriation bills and open to challenge on the floor.

It is lack of public scrutiny and debate that allows stealth spending projects to divert money from real budget priorities to low-priority earmarks. The public will have to demand that Congress reverse this return to business as usual. Bush’s action comes too late to have much effect.

President’s budget is an outrage

Froma Harrop
The Providence Journal
February 6, 2008

President Bush’s budget will top $3 trillion. It envisions massive deficits for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 – nearly matching the record in 2004, when the federal budget went $412 billion into the hole.

The average American might properly ask, “Shouldn’t we at least have something to show for all this?” Even the basics are missing – for example, health coverage for all children, a serious effort against global warming, bridges that don’t fall down. Where has the money gone?

David Cay Johnston provides some answers in his angry and brilliant book, “Free Lunch.” An ace investigative reporter, Johnston explains: “From those leaves in the park to textbooks to highway bridge maintenance to food safety inspections, money is dwindling because so much has been diverted to the already rich through giveaways, tax breaks and a host of subsidies that range from the explicit to the deeply hidden.”

These diversions started in the Reagan years, according to Johnston, and Democrats have played their part. But the massive transfer of national wealth to the tippy-top became religion under Bush.

Johnston recalls Bush’s famous remarks to a white-tie crowd at the Waldorf-Astoria during his 2000 campaign. Referring to his audience as the “haves and have-mores,” he said “some people call you the elite. I call you my base.”

Bush gave the “base” some very big tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. The cuts were supposed to boost the economy and probably helped, but they never generated enough revenue to pay for themselves. When higher collections helped lower the 2005 and 2006 deficits, the administration credited tax-cutting magic. Most economists disagreed, citing an upswing in the business cycle, bolstered by a housing bubble.

And contrary to conservative legend, the Bush “reforms” did not raise the overall income tax burden of the very rich. The administration cleverly claims that the share paid by the top 40 percent is higher than it was in 2000 – which is true. It neglects to add that families at the tiny pinnacle – the top tenth of 1 percent (who made at least $1.7 million in 2005) – have seen their tax burdens decline significantly. In 2005, this group of 300,000 men, women and children made nearly as much money as all 150 million Americans in the lower half.

So the high earners below this super-elite accounted for the entire heavier burden of the top 40 percent. These are the members of the upper middle class – the doctors, lawyers and businesspeople who have to work for their money.

As Johnston brutally documents, the free-market posturing of the Bush administration is a total sham. The government has become the enricher of the already rich, not the other way around.

For the connected, government gives away public land at deep discounts. It jiggers the tax code to make moving factories to China more profitable. It undoes safety regulations that subtract from the bottom line. It weakens consumer protections, letting financial institutions prey on the unsophisticated and the not-very-bright. In fine-print legislation, it shifts risk from corporate managers onto investors and makes the taxpayer cover mistakes. There’s a reason why the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled to 35,000 since Bush took office.

The rising cost of Medicare is troubling and must be addressed. But isn’t it interesting that Bush sees this middle-class entitlement as the budgetary outrage that needs his immediate attention? His budget would make deep cuts in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – and eliminate a $301 million program that trains pediatricians at children’s teaching hospitals.

That’s stuff for the ordinary folks. The have-mores will do just fine.

Trudy Rubin
The Philadelphia Inquirer
February 6, 2008

There’s another election happening this month that may be as important to Americans as Super Tuesday. I refer to parliamentary elections on Feb. 18 in Pakistan.

Pakistani elections will play a crucial role in that country’s ability to combat a growing threat from jihadis. Even as progress has been made in combating al-Qaida in Iraq, the organization has been sinking deeper roots in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghanistan border.

Thousands of Taliban, and other militants, are also based there and are setting off suicide bombs in Pakistan’s cities. Jihadis probably killed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the civilian leader most committed to fighting them if her party won the elections. And unlike Iraq, Pakistan is a country with nukes.

The country has become further destabilized by the political machinations of President Pervez Musharraf. He’s been stumping Europe’s capitals and the Davos World Economic Forum trying to convince the world’s leaders he will permit free and fair elections. His message: Elections don’t really matter, because only he can secure Pakistan.

Don’t believe it. The elections do matter, and the White House had better be prepared for a post-Musharraf Pakistan.

I say that even though Musharraf put on a strong show at Davos, appearing on two panels and giving one very long and impassioned breakfast presentation. With his British accent and crisp military bearing, he made a strong impression on rooms packed with CEOs from America, Europe and Asia, especially because Pakistan’s economy has improved during his tenure.

Musharraf admitted no mistakes, not in permitting the jihadi insurgency to grow on his watch, nor in sacking his Supreme Court when it was about to rule his re-election unconstitutional. “There is a degree of misperception about Pakistan,” he insisted at the Davos breakfast. “We are the victims since 1979.”

He blamed the growth of the jihadi threat, with some justification, on U.S. and Saudi funding in the 1980s for Islamic militants in Afghanistan. The militants were fighting against Soviet occupation. After Soviet troops left, those militants morphed into al-Qaida; the chaos in Afghanistan also spawned the growth of the Taliban.

“After 1989, everyone left the scene,” Musharraf said, “including the United States. We were used and we were ditched.” He never mentioned that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies helped the Taliban and other radical groups, as a hedge against India.

Pakistan is now suffering the blowback from its own actions, as these militants align themselves with al-Qaida. Critics also charge that the jihadis still have sympathizers within Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. Musharraf denied this.

“The deliberate nurturing of jihadism by the state,” says well-known Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, “has … produced extremism inside parts of the military and intelligence.” Hoodbhoy worries such penetration could compromise Pakistan’s protection for its nukes.

Musharraf also denied he had violated the constitution by sacking the judges. And he insisted that Pakistan’s elections would be free and fair. He was asked whether he might reinstate the judges to restore confidence in the electoral system (since any violations will be appealed to the courts). He retorted sharply: “Don’t impose Western human-rights considerations and standards on the whole world. Pakistan has a different environment.”

What Musharraf did not convey is the anger that the sacking of the court has aroused across Pakistan. This adds to the host of grievances, some contradictory, that a broad majority of the public now holds against him: that economic gains don’t benefit the poor, that he is too pro-American, that he may have conspired in Bhutto’s murder. (This is highly unlikely, but many of her supporters think it is so.)

So Pakistan’s elections have become a litmus test for an increasingly unpopular leader. No one will believe the elections aren’t rigged. If opposition parties don’t receive a majority, their followers are likely to go to the streets. Musharraf will try to carry on and divide the opposition. Political instability will make it harder to fight the jihadis. Some Pakistanis tell me the army, at some point, will have to tell Musharraf he must go. This is not something the United States can, or should, push for, but it seems likely.

So Americans should be watching the Pakistani elections, and the post-election, for signs of what will come after Musharraf. The central fight against al-Qaida will depend on the results.

Our View: For better or worse, Paul outside media spotlight

February 6, 2008

So which Republican candidate for president drew about 900 people on 48 hours’ notice to a Spokane appearance on a snow-clogged day? The same one who raised more money that any other GOP candidate in the third quarter of 2007.

Ron Paul supporters know the answer, and they’re not surprised many people would get it wrong. Their attitude about Paul’s media coverage is nicely captured in a recent letter in this paper:

“The question is no longer ‘Who is Ron Paul?’ It’s ‘Where is Ron Paul?’ Fox News failed to invite him to the last Republican debate in New Hampshire. MSNBC invited him to their debate but pretended he wasn’t there. Other media outlets (including print) have ignored his campaign for president as much as possible, barely even mentioning his second-place finishes in Nevada and Louisiana.”

While it’s true that the good news about a long-shot candidacy gets relatively scant attention, it’s also true that bad news won’t be treated to the daily media inquiries faced by those with a realistic chance of winning.

Take, for instance, the issue of bigoted comments that appeared in newsletters under Ron Paul’s name. In early January, the New Republic magazine dug up some editions from the late 1980s and early 1990s and printed much of what was written.

Now, imagine the media frenzy had the newsletters appeared under the name of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain or Mitt Romney. Imagine them being tethered to a description of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as “our annual Hate Whitey Day” or a suggestion that the Los Angeles riots stopped because “it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.”

Would they be able to attribute the problem to “bad editing,” as Paul did in Spokane? Would they be able to keep the author or authors’ names secret when explaining that they did not write the articles?

Not a chance. They’d get the typical scandal treatment. Quotes from those newsletters would be featured day and night on TV news channels. Print outlets would launch investigations to unearth the culprits. Supporters would not be able to toss off the comments as old news. They would have to face up to the reality that unless a more detailed explanation was forthcoming, their favorite candidate was toast.

Such is not the case with Ron Paul. The adoring throngs continue to show up in person and spread the word via the Internet. And the money continues to pour in. That’s not to say that some fans are not troubled. For instance, libertarian-minded Reason magazine has written supportive articles about Paul’s candidacy, but the editors have made it clear that the bigoted writings are a big problem and they’d like more answers.

So while Paul and his supporters continue to clamor about media inattention, maybe they ought to be quietly grateful.

N.Y. Senator Withstands Push By Surging Rival in Key Battlegrounds
By Dan Balz and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 6, 2008; A01

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won victories over Sen. Barack Obama in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York last night, giving her presidential campaign a crucial boost. But Obama countered by winning of a string of states, including the general election battleground of Missouri, in the seesaw race for the Democratic nomination.

The results ensured that the fierce contest for delegates will continue into critical primaries in Texas and Ohio on March 4, and possibly beyond, in what has become the party’s most competitive race in at least a quarter of a century.

Clinton claimed four of the five biggest prizes in Super Tuesday’s 22-state Democratic competition. She also captured Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Those victories helped stem what appeared to be gathering momentum around Obama’s candidacy since he won in South Carolina on Jan. 26.

But Obama won in more places than his New York rival, racking up victories in his home state of Illinois, as well as Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota and Utah. His narrow victory in Missouri came after Clinton appeared on the brink of winning there. Only the outcome in New Mexico remained unresolved early this morning.

In many of the states Clinton won, Obama had surged from far behind to narrow the gap in the days before Super Tuesday. Her ability to hold off his charge brought a sense of relief to her campaign advisers, but the likelihood that neither would emerge with a significant advantage in delegates was a sign that their roller-coaster competition would continue.

Clinton appeared before supporters in New York shortly before the polls closed in California, thanking her supporters for voting “not just to make history, but to remake America.” Saying that Republicans want “eight more years of the same,” she added, “They’ve got until January 20th, 2009, and not one day more.” She also presented herself as a candidate who “won’t let anyone Swift-boat this country’s future.”

Obama, who was in Chicago, came out later and, while congratulating Clinton on her successes, drew a contrast with his rival, saying voters in November deserve a clear choice between the Republican and Democratic nominees.

“It’s a choice between going into this election with Republicans and independents already united against us, or going against their nominee with a campaign that has united Americans of all parties, from all backgrounds, from all races, from all religions, around a common purpose,” he said. “It’s a choice between having a debate with the other party about who has the most experience in Washington, or having one about who is most likely to change Washington, because that’s a debate that we can win.”

Clinton and Obama were fighting not just for state-by-state victories but also for an advantage in the nearly 1,700 delegates up for grabs yesterday. Aides to both candidates said that, regardless of how the two carved up the states, neither would emerge with enough of an edge to claim a substantial advantage.

Delegate tallies lagged well behind the state-by-state results, given the complex formulas the Democrats use to determine the allocation.

Clinton’s victory in Massachusetts was especially sweet for her campaign, coming despite endorsements of Obama by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry and Gov. Deval L. Patrick that gave him hope for substantial momentum heading into yesterday’s primaries.

Her advisers called it “the biggest surprise of the night.” Obama advisers had warned that Clinton’s lead may be too large to overcome, but the loss was nonetheless a disappointment to his campaign.

Though the Clinton team immediately hailed Massachusetts as an upset, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in an interview just after the race was called that he was “not surprised at all” by her win in the state. Clinton won the Bay State largely on the strength of her support from women, who made up more than half the electorate from coast to coast.

Exit polls from the National Election Pool showed Clinton with a double-digit lead among women in the state, where she attended college as an undergraduate. She also won among self-identified independents, normally a solid constituency for Obama.

“We feel quite good about how those returns have come in,” Mark Penn, the chief strategist for Clinton, said in a conference call with reporters shortly after 10 p.m. As he spoke, cheers erupted in the background at the campaign’s headquarters in Arlington.

Penn argued that people who made up their minds late were trending toward Clinton, though early exit data suggested there was an even split between the two.

In a race that will come down to delegates, Clinton officials said they will wait to see results from all the states before declaring a delegate count — but predicted she would ultimately be ahead.

“By the end of today, with pledged delegates and superdelegates, we expect to be ahead of Senator Obama in overall delegates,” said Guy Cecil, Clinton’s field director.

In the South, Clinton more than held her own. She lost Georgia — one of only a few states where she lost among women; the same was true in Illinois — but triumphed in Arkansas, her former home state, and Oklahoma and Tennessee. And the race continued to split along racial lines, as Obama won about eight in 10 African Americans, a trend that put him over the top in Georgia and Alabama.

Still, he won nearly four in 10 white voters in Georgia and fared better among white men there than he had in an earlier racially polarized race in South Carolina, giving his campaign a chance to claim that he had broadened his support in the intervening weeks. Victories in Connecticut and North Dakota bolstered that claim.

The race in Missouri remained close even as other states were called; an early tally in Clinton’s favor proved premature as the night wore on. But the state reflected a wider sweep for Obama among African Americans: He won more than three-fourths of the state’s black voters, while Clinton beat him among senior citizens by a margin of 2 to 1.

The demographics of the Democratic race suggested a contest that is dividing along racial and gender lines, as Clinton won 7 in 10 white women in New Jersey, as well as three-quarters of Hispanic women.

The candidates divided men in New Jersey evenly. In Tennessee, Clinton won white voters of all ages; Obama won blacks across the board. Similar splits occurred in California, where black voters chose Obama 5 to 1. But the two split the white vote in California, where Clinton made up the difference by winning Hispanics 2 to 1.

Twenty-two states held Democratic contests yesterday, with 1,681 pledged delegates to the party’s national convention in Denver at stake. The 22 states account for 52 percent of all pledged delegates awarded during the nomination battle.

There will be 4,049 delegates attending the national convention; a candidate needs 2,025 to secure the nomination. Of that total, 3,253 are pledged delegates, which means their votes are determined by the caucus or primary results in their state. The remainder are superdelegates, who are free to vote for whomever they prefer.

Going into yesterday’s balloting, Obama had 63 delegates to Clinton’s 48 in the first four party-sanctioned contests of the year — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Clinton held a lead among superdelegates. Various news organizations count the distribution of superdelegates differently, but Clinton is widely agreed to lead Obama by a margin of about 90.

Clinton voted in New York yesterday morning and spent most of the day conducting interviews, her voice on the verge of vanishing after days of cross-country campaigning. “The stakes are huge,” she said as she cast her ballot at an elementary school near her Chappaqua home.

Obama voted in his home town of Chicago, at an elementary school in the Hyde Park neighborhood.

Throughout the day, Clinton advisers worked to play down expectations. Even before any polling stations were closed, Penn and senior adviser Howard Wolfson held a conference call with reporters to announce that Clinton had agreed to a series of debates between now and the March 4 primaries and invited Obama to join her. Doubting that they would be able to pull off a decisive victory yesterday — and with a slate of races in the weeks ahead that they believe will skew in Obama’s favor — the Clinton campaign is now banking on doing well in Texas and Ohio on March 4. Penn said Clinton would participate in an ABC News debate Sunday, a Fox News debate Monday in Washington, a Feb. 27 CNN debate in Ohio and a Feb. 28 MSNBC debate in Houston.

“The campaign believes it’s critically important that we continue the debates between Senator Obama and Senator Clinton,” Penn said. “We think it’s critically important that people get to see the candidates face to face.”

Obama advisers declined to commit to a new round of debates. The next important competitive contests will be next Tuesday, when Maryland, Virginia and the District will hold primaries.

Staff writers Perry Bacon Jr., with Clinton, and Shailagh Murray, with Obama, and polling director Jon Cohen polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta and research director Lucy Shackelford in Washington contributed to this report.