The Washington Post's Amy Goldstein and Jonathan Weisman write about the State of the Union Address, and the "heavy emphasis on health care and jobs" in George W. Bush's agenda. Here's the opening of their article:
Amy Goldstein and Jonathan Weisman: Constrained by record budget deficits and election-year realities, President Bush offered a short list of relatively inexpensive domestic proposals last night, including job training, an altered immigration policy, expanded efforts to promote sexual abstinence, and plans to prevent gay marriages and the use of illegal drugs.
For the most part, the agenda Bush laid out, with its heavy emphasis on health care and jobs, largely repackages earlier proposals.... Bush called on Congress to act quickly to make health insurance more affordable... tax credits to help uninsured people buy private coverage, new limits on medical liability lawsuits, and a plan that would allow small companies to band together to offer health coverage that bypasses existing insurance regulations.... Bush proposed several ways to prepare Americans for work. He called for a modest growth in job training, seeking $250 million to expand a program that links community colleges with employers... coaching for middle school students who lag in reading and math, more advanced courses for low-income schools... efforts to recruit mathematicians and scientists to teach part time. He also recommended an expansion of college scholarships, known as Pell Grants, and an improvement in reading education.
Totaling up all these initiatives, and being generous with each, we are still talking less than 2% of federal spending here--less than 0.4% of America's GDP. The "jobs" programs mount up to less than 1/2000 of federal spending--less than 1/10,000 of GDP: 0.01%.
I don't know what White House brownie points from what senior administration officials Goldstein and Weisman think they is getting by attempting to persuade his readers of the false belief that Bush's agenda has a "heavy emphasis on health care and jobs." They had better be good ones.
It is true that in the second half of the article they paint a franker, truer picture than the pap the administration feeds them that shows up in paragraphs 2 through 7. Paragraph 8 notes that Bush avoids talking about the deficit. Paragraph 10 actually quotes two critics observers who know something about the budget and the government--right-wing Ed Crane from Cato, left-wing Bob Greenstein from the CBPP. (But the quotes are far too short to convey either Crane's or Greenstein's position.)
And how much larger is the readership for the first four paragraphs than the rest of the article, anyway?
Posted by DeLong at January 26, 2004 07:58 PM | TrackBack
At a time when global capitalism pared with advanced communication technology have joined forces to drive American jobs to low wage foriegn countries (with the blessing and encouragement of Allen Greenspan), Bush proposed a new $1.5 Billion program for marriage training, and less than half that for Job training.
Can a President be more out of touch?
Posted by: Larry Biddle on January 27, 2004 12:39 AM"I don't know what White House brownie points from what senior administration officials Goldstein and Weisman think they is getting by attempting to persuade his readers of the false belief that Bush's agenda has a "heavy emphasis on health care and jobs." They had better be good ones."
The article is describing "the agenda the president laid out." In other words, this was (primarily) an article about a speech, not an article about the Bush administration's policies.
It seems like if this is an example of "why we need a better press corps," then a better press corps is one where the news is covered on the front page more in the fashion of Economist or New Republic articles. Perhaps so - I tend to avoid the front page articles, myself....
The day after the SOTU, President Bush came to Toledo to speak at a local community college. During his talk, blamed the loss of manufacturing jobs on three things, including frivolous medial lawsuits (unfair trade, and lack of a federal energy policy were the other two).
Not one newspaper reported this ludicrous claim. The audience was small--300 invitees only--so only those who bothered to read the White House transcript saw it.
Posted by: Douglas Anders on January 27, 2004 03:38 AMDoug
Interesting that, of the audience of 300, there were no reporters.
Or no non-invited reporters I guess. What we hear in the general public is that Bush is on a campaign trail selling elements of his SOTU address.
Preaching to the Ohio choir. I wonder if the choir membership is sagging. Was the reception a tad less enthusiastic than the SOTU spectacle?
Where are those smart college kids in Toledo when you need them? Or was it a surprise visit?
Or maybe it was just attended by the WH staff who happened to read the notice? A very small choir.
Brad is quantitatively oriented; thus, he immediately looks to see how big the funding for these programs are. Bush is preaching to the qualitatively oriented - any program, no matter how minimally funded, sounds good to them. Or alternatively, any budget deficit, no matter how large, sounds about the same - both billions and trillions sound large, so what's the dif?
Posted by: joe on January 27, 2004 09:40 AM