[Mb-civic] action alert plus Miserable by Design

[Mha Atma Khalsa]

Here is a good action alert followed by an incisive
Krugman piece...

http://www.freepress.net/action/stopprop

Last week, an official government investigation
determined that the Bush Administration broke the law
when it used taxpayer dollars to hire fake journalists
like Armstrong Williams to promote its political
agenda.

It’s not only unethical, it’s also illegal. The only
way for justice to be served is for you and 50,000
others to add your name to a letter I am sending to
Congress and the Justice Department demanding
prosecution. A copy of your letter will be sent to all
the leaders of the Judiciary and Appropriations
Committees.

Please put your name next to mine in demanding a full
prosecution .

This White House has a knack for evading prosecution.
Our strength is in our numbers -- I need you to stand
by me and make the charges stick against an
administration that has set aside more than a quarter
billion dollars to push covert propaganda on the
public. No other administration has spent so much to
deceive so many.

In a report released on Sept. 30, the Government
Accountability Office found that the Department of
Education illegally used taxpayer dollars to fund a
covert propaganda campaign, funneling money to
Williams to tout Bush's education policies in advance
of the 2004 elections. The investigation also dug up
other instances of abuse, including a previously
undisclosed case in which the Bush administration
commissioned a newspaper article that praised the
White House's role in promoting science education. But
these abuses may just be the tip of the iceberg.

We need the White House to provide a full accounting
of the more than $250 million in taxpayer funds spent
to promote its political agenda.

Tell Congress and Justice to prosecute these crimes to
the full extent of the law .

The administration's silence on propaganda speaks
volumes. Without popular dissent, an emboldened White
House will continue to throw up obstacles to full
disclosure. It is now up to the public to pressure our
government to enforce the law and stop propaganda
crimes.

Take action today -- and don't forget to tell your
friends.

Onward,

Robert McChesney
President
Free Press
www.freepress.net  
P.S. Learn more about stopping news fraud at
www.freepress.net/propaganda .

----------

Miserable by Design

By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times Op-Ed: October 3, 2005

Federal aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina is already
faltering on two
crucial fronts: health care and housing. Incompetence
is part of the
problem, but deeper political issues also play a
crucial role.

Start with health care, where conservative senators,
generally believed to
be acting on behalf of the White House, have blocked
bipartisan
legislation that would provide all low-income victims
of Katrina with
health coverage under Medicaid.

In a letter urging Senate leaders to reject the bill,
Mike Leavitt, the
secretary of Health and Human Services, warned that it
would create "a new
Medicaid entitlement." He asserted that victims can be
taken care of by
Medicaid "waivers," which basically amount to giving
refugees the health
benefits, if any, that they would have been entitled
to in their home
states - and no more.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points
out, many needy
victims won't qualify for aid. For example, Medicaid
doesn't cover
childless adults of working age. In fact, surveys show
that many destitute
survivors of Katrina are being denied Medicaid, and
some are going without
medicines they need.

Local hospitals and doctors will often treat Katrina
victims even if they
can't pay. But this means that communities that have
welcomed Katrina
refugees will, in effect, be financially punished for
their generosity -
something local officials will remember in future
crises. (The
administration has offered vague, unconvincing
assurances that it will do
something to compensate medical caregivers. It has
offered much more
concrete assurances that it will reimburse religious
groups that provide
aid.)

What about housing? These days, both conservatives and
liberals agree that
public housing projects are a bad idea, and that
housing vouchers - which
help the poor pay rent - are much better. In the
aftermath of the 1994
Northridge earthquake, special housing vouchers issued
to victims worked
very well.

But the administration has chosen, instead, to focus
its efforts on the
creation of public housing in the form of trailer
parks, which have been
slow to take shape, will almost surely be more
expensive than a voucher
program and may create long-term refugee ghettoes.
Even Newt Gingrich
calls this "extraordinarily bad policy" that "violates
every conservative
principle."

What's going on here? The crucial point is that
President Bush has been
forced by events into short-term actions that conflict
with his long-term
goals. His mission in office is to dismantle or at
least shrink the
federal social safety net, yet he must, as a matter of
political
necessity, provide aid to Katrina's victims. His
problem is how to do that
without legitimizing the very role of government he
opposes.

This dilemma explains the administration's opposition
to Medicaid
coverage for all Katrina refugees. How can it provide
that coverage
without undermining its ongoing efforts to reduce the
Medicaid rolls? More
broadly, if it accepts the principle that all
hurricane victims are
entitled to medical care, people might start asking
why the same isn't
true of all American citizens - a line of thought that
points toward a
system of universal health insurance, which is
anathema to conservatives.

As for the administration's odd insistence on
providing public housing
instead of relying on the market, The Los Angeles
Times reports that
Department of Housing and Urban Development officials
initially announced
plans to issue rent vouchers, then backed off after
meeting with White
House aides. As the article notes, the administration
has "repeatedly
sought to cut or limit" the existing housing voucher
program.

This suggests that what administration officials fear
isn't that housing
vouchers would fail, but that they would succeed - and
that this success
would undermine the administration's ongoing efforts
to cut back housing
aid.

So here's the key to understanding post-Katrina
policy: Mr. Bush can't
avoid helping Katrina's victims, but he doesn't want
to legitimize
institutions that help the needy, like the housing
voucher program. As a
result, his administration refuses to use those
institutions, even when
they are the best way to provide victims with aid.
More generally, the
administration is trying to treat Katrina's victims as
harshly as the
political realities allow, so as not to create a
precedent for other aid
efforts.

As the misery of the hurricane's survivors goes on,
remember this: to a
large extent, they are miserable by design.

***



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"The probablility that we may fall in the struggle
ought not to deter us from the
support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not
deter me."
                                                
----Abraham Lincoln




		
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