Friday, October 15, 2004
WELL, DUH - EVERYBODY KNOWS A GAZILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT IS WAAAY BETTER THAN A BAZILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT. JEEZ.
Bush plays his deficit shell game
David Lazarus, San Francisco Chronicle
In his final debate with Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday night, President Bush reiterated his pledge to cut the nation's record budget deficit in half by the end of one more term in office.
"It requires pro-growth policies that grow our economy and fiscal sanity in the halls of Congress," he declared.
A day later, Bush's Treasury secretary, John Snow, told the halls of Congress that he's taking the extreme step of using government workers' pension money to avoid increased borrowing that would push the Bush administration past a $7.38 trillion debt ceiling.
In a dazzling display of fiscal sanity, Snow said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee that "it is imperative that the Congress take action to increase the debt limit by mid-November," which would be, as luck would have it, after the Nov. 2 election.
So let's recap: The Bush administration finds itself unable to operate within the boundaries of the highest debt ceiling in U.S. history, so its solution is to get by on other people's money until it can secure approval to run up even more debt.
Pro-growth policies indeed.
"It certainly highlights the disconnect between rhetoric and reality," said Harry Zeeve, national field director for the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan budget watchdog group.
"The government is not living within its means," he said. "It's not unlike having to raise the limit on your credit-card account, and that's a dangerous thing. Eventually you'll have to pay a price for it."
Rising national debt reflects the cumulation of continuing annual deficits. It poses a risk of higher interest rates for everything from home mortgages to car loans.
Soaring national debt also represents a danger that the nation's creditors, including a number of foreign governments, will grow distrustful of our mounting IOUs and eventually ask for their money back.
In any case, Bush isn't the first president to exploit the $56 billion Government Securities Investment Fund, or G-Fund, for a little fiscal sleight of hand.
That honor, a Treasury Department spokeswoman told me, goes to the president's dad, George H.W. Bush, who tapped government workers' pension money in 1989 when confronted with a fast-approaching debt ceiling of $2.8 trillion.
President Bill Clinton did the same in 1996 when faced with a $4.9 trillion debt limit and a nasty budget battle with Congress.
But the current occupant of the White House has made the most aggressive use of the tactic -- and required the most frequent increases in his administration's debt load.
According to the Treasury Department, Bush has had his Treasury secretary dip into the G-Fund every year for the past three years as government spending wildly exceeded revenues.
During this same period, Bush has pushed through a series of tax cuts while pursuing ambitious domestic and foreign-policy agendas, including two wars and an overhaul of the Medicare system.
"I don't know how seriously we can take Bush's attitude toward fiscal responsibility," said Alan Auerbach, an economist at UC Berkeley. "He has very little credibility on this issue."
In his letter to Congress, Snow vowed that all cash taken from the government pension fund eventually will be restored and that beneficiaries will feel "as if this temporary action had never taken place."
Meanwhile, the White House announced Thursday that the budget deficit this year totaled $413 billion, which is a record in dollar terms but not as a percentage of the overall economy.
Administration officials, with all the exuberance of a kid who got a D in algebra instead of an F, were quick to note that the $413 billion deficit is much better than the $521 billion shortfall they'd been forecasting earlier in the year.
Just hours after raiding the G-Fund and demanding a higher debt ceiling, Snow said he was "encouraged by the progress our economy has made."
He said that "the combination of a growing economy bringing in increased revenues, along with tight controls on spending, will enable us to reach the president's goal of cutting the budget deficit in half in five years."
What Snow didn't say is that Bush's deficit-reduction goal rests in large part on a virtual spending freeze by Congress, an almost laughable aspiration.
For his part, Josh Bolten, head of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement that the record $413 billion deficit is "a clear reflection of our strengthening economy and improving fiscal performance. "
The Concord Coalition's Zeeve was somewhat less enthusiastic.
"The fact that we have to keep raising the debt limit means that we're spending more than we take in," he observed. "This should be causing chronic heartburn for ordinary Americans.
"This administration has pursued a big-government spending policy and a small-government taxing policy. The result can only be deficits as far as the eye can see."Thursday, October 14, 2004
DUBYA TO HALLIBURTON: GO AHEAD AND PISS IN THE DRINKING WATER, GUYS!
Halliburton's Interests Assisted by White House
The administration has lent support to a lucrative drilling technique. Some in the EPA consider it an environmental concern.
Quote
"EPA produced a final report . . . that I believe is scientifically unsound and contrary to the purposes of the law."
Weston Wilson
EPA environmental engineer
"EPA selected panel members who we believed would be unbiased and fair."
Cynthia Bergman
EPA spokeswoman
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By Tom Hamburger and Alan C. Miller, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Over the last four years, the Bush administration and Vice President Dick Cheney's office have backed a series of measures favoring a drilling technique developed by Halliburton Co., Cheney's former employer.
The technology, known as hydraulic fracturing, boosts gas and oil production and generates $1.5 billion a year for the company, about one-fifth of its energy-related revenue. In recent years, Halliburton and other oil and gas firms have been fighting efforts to regulate the procedure under a statute that protects drinking water supplies.
The 2001 national energy policy report, written under the direction of the vice president's office, cited the value of hydraulic fracturing but didn't mention concerns raised by staff members at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Since then, the administration has taken steps to keep the practice from being regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, which Halliburton has said would hurt its business and add needless costs and bureaucratic delays.
An EPA study concluded in June that there was no evidence that hydraulic fracturing posed a threat to drinking water. However, some EPA employees complained about the study internally before its completion, and others have strongly criticized it publicly since its release.
One of them, an environmental engineer and 30-year EPA veteran in Denver, last week sought whistle-blower protection in an 18-page statement sent to the agency's inspector general and members of Congress. The statement alleges that the study's findings were premature, may endanger public health and were approved by an industry-dominated review panel that included a current Halliburton employee.
"EPA produced a final report … that I believe is scientifically unsound and contrary to the purposes of the law," Weston Wilson wrote to lawmakers.
EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said Wednesday that the agency was reviewing Wilson's statement but did not "believe that any of the concerns raised by his analysis would lead us to a different conclusion."
Cheney declined to be interviewed or to answer specific questions for this story. His spokesman, Kevin Kellems, cited the vice president's commitment to keeping the 2001 energy policy deliberations confidential, a principle Cheney is defending in federal court.
"There is an important principle at stake in protecting the ability of the office of the president and vice president to receive the most candid and direct advice and counsel during the policymaking process," Kellems said.
Halliburton, where Cheney was chief executive from 1995 to 2000, is the leader among three large companies providing most fracturing services to oil and gas drilling operations around the world. Fracturing affords access to hard-to-reach energy deposits by forcing pressurized fluids deep into the earth, creating underground fissures that permit oil and gas to flow toward surface wells.
Halliburton and other energy companies have applauded the administration's support of fracturing, which they say has proved safe for decades.
Efforts to regulate hydraulic fracturing became a concern for the industry during Cheney's tenure at Halliburton. A group of Alabama residents went to court in 1995 seeking to force regulation of the practice under the federal drinking water law. Halliburton filed a brief in the case, arguing that environmental regulation of the practice "could have significant adverse effects" on its business.
The company subsequently played a leading role in lobbying against efforts to regulate fracturing under federal drinking water laws.
Cheney, who left Halliburton in August 2000 to run for vice president, has said he has severed all ties to the company.
Since he took office in January 2001, Cheney has received $398,548 in deferred compensation, and he will continue to receive annual payments through 2005. He also has 433,333 options to purchase Halliburton stock, according to financial disclosure records filed in May 2004.
But his staff has pointed to an insurance policy that guarantees that the vice president will receive the deferred compensation no matter how Halliburton does — and to his commitment to donate any profits from the stock options to charity.
The administration's ties to Halliburton have become an issue in the presidential campaign. Democrats criticize the administration for awarding the company billions of dollars in contracts in Iraq. Cheney has said he played no role in the Iraq contracts.
Less attention has been paid to Halliburton's domestic operations. The company, like many in the oil and gas business, has benefited from an administration led by two former oil executives, both of whom have made clear their belief that too many regulatory hurdles hamper efforts to increase domestic energy production.
Energy Breakthrough
In 1949, engineers from Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. gathered in an Oklahoma field to experiment with a new drilling technique: They pumped gasoline, napalm, crude oil and sand into the ground under enormous pressure in hopes of stimulating oil from a 4,882-foot-deep well.
This successful test of hydraulic fracturing would "forever change the workings — and fortunes — of the energy business," said a Halliburton news release commemorating the experiment's 50th anniversary.
The company estimates that the technique has increased recoverable oil and gas reserves in North America by as much as a third. About 28,000 wells a year are fractured. Halliburton services at least one-third of the market, analysts say.
The ingredients used in fracturing vary with the job and the terrain. Most of them are as benign as food additives, but they can include toxic chemicals. In every case, the fluid includes water and a "propping agent" — usually fine sand or ceramics mixed with a chemical gel — that is pumped into the cracks to keep them open. A second chemical mixture liquefies the gel so that much of the injected water and chemicals can be removed before the gas is extracted.
But some of the fluid remains in the ground, a cause for concern in heavily drilled areas.
Energy companies say there is not a single proven case that fracturing fluids caused contamination.
But in Alabama, a group of residents petitioned the EPA in 1994, saying that their drinking water had been fouled by fracturing fluid used to extract methane from coal beds.
They asked the agency to force the state to regulate fracturing under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. They argued that wells subjected to fracturing should be held to the same pollution standards as wells used to dispose of waste from energy production.
The EPA denied the request. Residents asked the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the decision, and in 1997, the court ruled that fracturing should be regulated under the federal drinking water law.
The Alabama case set off a scramble in the industry, which feared it would lead to wider regulation of fracturing — imposing costly requirements for permits, inspections and testing.
While the court case was unfolding, lobbyists for Halliburton and other energy companies began pressing the Clinton administration to exempt fracturing from regulations under the drinking water law.
They made limited progress. Former EPA Administrator Carol Browner was called to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress from gas-producing states. She said more study was needed, and the agency launched the drinking water study that ended this year.
Cheney-Led Task Force
Nine days after his inauguration in 2001, President Bush asked Cheney to head a Cabinet-level task force to draw up a national energy strategy.
The task force consisted of the vice president, nine Cabinet members and five senior administration appointees. Research and writing was directed by two aides to Cheney supported by a working group of representatives from participating Cabinet agencies. The working group met through February and March, often in the vice president's ceremonial office, to develop recommendations for the principals — Cheney and Cabinet members.
The Cheney-led task force would tackle some of the highest-priority issues on the new administration's energy agenda: expanding oil and gas production, improving pipeline and power line transmission systems and developing a new approach to regulating air and water pollution.
To the surprise of some of those involved in the effort, the Cabinet-level panel also would consider a narrower topic of importance to Cheney when he headed Halliburton: hydraulic fracturing.
Cheney has cited executive privilege to keep task force deliberations secret. But interviews and records obtained by The Times show that Cheney's office was involved in discussions about how fracturing should be portrayed in the report, and that it resisted EPA attempts to include concerns about its effects on the environment.
The Energy Department drafted language for the task force that described hydraulic fracturing as essential to increasing domestic gas production and that asserted that production would be hurt by regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Documents obtained by The Times show that in the spring of 2001, EPA officials corresponded with the vice president's office at least three times requesting modifications in the proposed language. The EPA specifically asked that the report note that the EPA was studying potential environmental consequences of the technique.
A May 1, 2001, e-mail from the EPA to Karen Knutson, a Cheney aide serving as deputy director of the task force, proposed the addition of the following paragraph:
"As a result of the … lawsuit on hydraulic fracturing of coalbed methane wells, the EPA recognizes this issue raises concerns and is conducting an investigation to evaluate the potential risks to ... drinking water." The proposed language described the ongoing EPA study of fracturing and water quality, and noted that it could culminate in "a regulatory determination."
On May 3, EPA employees said, they received a final pre-publication draft of the report. Agency staff members met into the evening to discuss the lack of responsiveness from Cheney's office on fracturing and several other issues. They decided to ask then-EPA Administrator Christie Whitman to write to the vice president personally to request modifications.
The following day, Whitman initialed a memo to Cheney asking him to reconsider parts of the final draft, including the section on fracturing. Her note pressed Cheney to scale back the recommendation exempting hydraulic fracturing from regulation.
Whitman warned that the administration could be "walking into a trap" by taking a public position against any regulation before the EPA completed its study of drinking-water pollution.
Whitman, who resigned last year, declined to be interviewed. Through a spokesman, she said, "EPA offered its expertise and input on relevant issues whenever possible," but she said she didn't recall details concerning the task force's handling of hydraulic fracturing.
"From my perspective, the vice president's office was driving the issue of hydraulic fracturing," said Jeremy Symons, a former EPA staffer assigned to the task force, who now works for a wildlife conservation organization.
When the task force report was released on May 16, 2001, the reference to an exemption from regulation was gone. But the report described the benefits of fracturing in detail without any mention of the EPA study.
"In certain formations, it has been demonstrated that the gas flow rate may be increased by as much as twenty-fold by hydraulic fracturing," the report said, noting that "most new gas wells drilled in the United States will require hydraulic fracturing."
Although Cheney declined to answer questions about his office's role in the fracturing discussions, his spokesman, Kellems, said the task force encouraged "environmentally sound production" of energy.
During the next three years, the administration supported a regulatory exemption for the practice on Capitol Hill and at the EPA.
Cheney participated in House-Senate conference committee negotiations last year that produced a sweeping national energy bill with a provision that would exempt fracturing from EPA drinking water regulation. Bush and Cheney immediately endorsed the energy bill. Some of those involved in the meetings said they could not recall or did not know whether Cheney intervened on behalf of fracturing.
Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the company "did not contact Vice President Cheney or his office about hydraulic fracturing or the [provision in] the energy bill."
The bill has passed the House, but has languished in the Senate under the threat of a filibuster.
EPA Study Attacked
Although stymied in Congress, the gas and oil industry won an important victory within the administration.
In June, the EPA released its long-awaited study initiated in response to the Alabama lawsuit. The report focused on the use of fracturing to recover methane gas from coal beds, which often lie close to the surface and near groundwater used for drinking.
The report concluded that "injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into coal bed methane wells poses little or no threat" to drinking water supplies and "does not justify additional study at this time."
Hall said the study confirmed Halliburton's "long-standing belief that hydraulic fracturing poses little or no threat to drinking water sources."
But the EPA study has come under sharp attack within the agency. An EPA water expert, who reviewed drafts of the report before its release, said he complained internally about several flaws. The water expert, who did not want his name used because he was speaking without authorization, said his concerns were largely ignored.
Wilson, the EPA environmental engineer, and two other specialists from the EPA Denver regional headquarters told The Times they were not consulted, even though their territory included the country's richest coal bed methane fields and some of the nation's most vulnerable water supplies.
In his statement to the EPA inspector general and members of Congress, Wilson said the study did not follow approved methodology, relied on a panel of experts with conflicts of interest and failed to include any field investigation.
The report was based largely on a review of fracturing studies, reports of water contamination and consultations with state regulatory officials. The EPA decided against proceeding with a second phase of independent fieldwork.
"This study was hijacked," Wilson said in an interview. The EPA's multiple failures "may result in danger to public health and safety," he said.
Wilson's statement said the study found that fracturing fluids often contained hazardous chemicals. But because their patented formulas are proprietary, all the potential compounds are not publicly identified, he said.
"EPA cannot objectively nor scientifically defend its claim that this practice does not risk endangering sources of underground drinking water," Wilson said in an interview. Agency officials said the chemicals were diluted and dispersed enough to minimize the risk. And they said their analysis of incident reports found no firm proof that fracturing had directly caused drinking water contamination.
"Unless we actually see threats to drinking water supplies, the Safe Drinking Water Act admonishes EPA not to regulate injection for oil and gas production unnecessarily," said EPA spokeswoman Bergman.
The report did find that diesel fuel in fracturing fluid posed a risk to drinking water. But EPA officials said no regulatory action was necessary, because the three major fracturing companies voluntarily agreed to stop using the fuel in coal bed methane operations. Wilson's statement says the arrangement is inadequate, because the EPA has no way of enforcing it and any of the parties can drop out at will.
The EPA report was reviewed by a seven-person panel: a senior technical advisor at Halliburton, a manager from an industry-funded research institute who previously worked for Halliburton, a senior engineer with BP Amoco and two academics who had worked for the energy industry. A sixth member, a state regulator with an engineering background, also had worked for Amoco. The final member was an expert on hydraulic fracturing from Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
"EPA selected panel members who we believed would be unbiased and fair in reviewing this study, and selected a representative group," the EPA's Bergman said.
One reviewer, Peter E. Clark, a professor at the University of Alabama who specializes in hydraulic fracturing fluids and previously worked for the industry, said the panel was fair. "Nobody tried to grind any axes."
He said the original draft of the report reviewed by the panel overstated the risks of fracturing and needed to be toned down. He said he requested changes and that, in the end, "EPA made the right decision."
The EPA's Bergman said the final report incorporated only changes suggested by the panel "to make the study as scientifically accurate as possible."
In addition to the peer review panel, the agency sought broad input through public meetings and notices and consultation within the EPA, including the Denver regional office, officials said.
Cynthia C. Dougherty, director of the agency's groundwater and drinking water office, said there was no political influence on the selection of the peer review panel or preparation of the report. Halliburton's Hall said the company did not recommend its employee for the panel and "had no expectation of specific benefit" from his participation.
The EPA report was a victory for Halliburton. Although only 1% of the company's fracturing business is in coal bed methane fields, it is one of the fastest-growing sources of gas production in the U.S. The study is seen as a boost to industry's efforts to win a blanket exemption for fracturing.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who has followed the fracturing study's progress, said the EPA review "made a faith-based leap to conclude that injecting toxic materials" underground posed little or no threat, he said. "The unanswered questions in EPA's report cry out for further study."
Geoffrey D. Thyne, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines who has done consulting work for energy companies and local governments, said fracturing is generally safe but needs to be monitored, particularly in areas where oil and gas deposits are close to water supplies. Exempting fracturing from EPA regulation "is premature, unwise and goes against the public interest," he said.
*
Times staff researchers Robin Cochran in Washington and Janet Lundblad in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
The fight over a drilling technique
*
When Dick Cheney led Halliburton Co. in the late 1990s, the firm opposed Environmental Protection Agency regulation of hydraulic fracturing, a technique that pumps pressurized fluid into the ground to boost oil and gas production. Halliburton and two other companies dominate worldwide use of the method. The administration of President Bush and Vice President Cheney has taken steps to keep the practice of hydraulic fracturing from being regulated by the EPA under federal drinking water
laws.
1995: Dick Cheney becomes chief executive of Halliburton Co., a leader in fracturing.
1997: Alabama residents win a ruling in U.S. appeals court that fracturing should be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
1999: Following up on its ruling, the U.S. appeals court orders the EPA to oversee fracturing in Alabama.
2000: Halliburton lobbies in Washington to exempt fracturing from regulation under drinking water law.
2001: Vice President Cheney convenes task force to devise a national energy policy.
2001: The EPA chief presses Cheney to scale back language recommending the exemption of fracturing from a task force report. The exemption recommendation is removed, but the report notes the benefits of fracturing.
2003: Bush and Cheney back a sweeping energy bill that includes a provision to exempt fracturing from EPA drinking water regulation.
2004: An EPA study concludes that fracturing does not threaten drinking water.
2004: An EPA environmental engineer seeks whistle-blower protection after telling the agency inspector general and lawmakers that the EPA fracturing study is scientifically unsound.
*
Sources: Federal court records, national energy policy report, EPA records, interviews and news accountsThursday, October 14, 2004
JOCKS VS. GEEKS
The Two Tribes of American Politics
By Ted Rall
SEATTLE--We Americans are about to vote on what kind of country we want to be. Will we continue down the same road we've followed for over two centuries, as an imperfect nation dedicated to the preservation and expansion of individual liberties, whose Bill of Rights stands both as its greatest achievement and its most shamefully unfulfilled ideal? Or will we lurch to the right, voluntarily cashing in our personal freedom in exchange for citizenship in an empire constantly at war, reviled by the rest of the world but--until history spawns a worthy challenger--its undisputed master?
Issues like gay marriage and partial-birth abortion lead to a lot of spilled ink but are relatively inconsequential in the big picture of American politics. What divides our left from our right--each of which considers the other dangerous, if not treasonous--are competing visions of the United States. Were America's military and economic dominance over the globe to fade while our living standards and constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms remained intact, liberals wouldn't fret all that much. As we've seen since September 2001, on the other hand, conservatives don't lose sleep over increasing poverty, police checkpoints, censorship or racially motivated arrests or indefinite detentions since they see those developments as supporting the primary aim--remaining the world's sole superpower.
John Edwards (news - web sites) talks about "two Americas," two classes for whom opportunity is either a birthright or a pipe dream. What he describes is real, yet the other gap--between those who see the U.S. as a nation based on individual rights and those who see it first and foremost as a powerful empire--is almost impossible to bridge. Individualists and imperialists can't agree to disagree because they don't even agree on what the United States of America is, or what it should become. Republicans, who view George W. Bush as a commander in chief leading the empire into dangerous battles abroad against hostile savages, equate him with the nation itself. "Why do you hate America?" they reply to his critics. Liberals, who view presidents as taxpayer-funded employees, are inherently hostile to the notion that any one man can be the embodiment of a democratic America. They roll their eyes at what they believe to be a cheap rhetorical advice although, in fact, the conservatives are dead serious about the question.
American politics are just as tribal-based as those of Afghanistan (news - web sites). But where they have Pashtuns and Tajiks, we have jocks and cheerleaders versus freaks and geeks.
There are two types of high school students: the sunny kids whose eyes light up at the announcement of a pep rally, who race to the gymnasium to shout the fight song, and the sullen black T-shirt-wearing hordes who let out disgusted sighs while hunting for a hiding place to smoke cheap cigarettes. Conformists versus contrarians, extroverts versus introverts, fans of Top 40 music versus fans of obscure, critically-acclaimed bands, people who believe those in authority versus those who don't. Athletes grow up to vote Republican, dorks Democratic. The great divide was chronicled by the John Hughes films of the 1980s--aggressive, bland privilege meets victimized, appealing alienation and wins--and it lives on in a classic right-wing Internet reposte to leftist posters: "You got beat up in school a lot, didn't you?" Members of the in crowd can marry those of the out crowd, work together and even be friends, but they will never share basic assumptions about the way the world works.
It's hazy now, but our two tribes used to agree about a lot more stuff. Democrats and Republicans both thought that Jimmy Carter was a nice man but an ineffective administrator, that Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) was a good speaker, that Bill Clinton (news - web sites) was a womanizer. Then the 2000 election was stolen and Bush exploited the 9/11 attacks as an excuse for wars of conquest and domestic political clampdowns. Republicans demanded total obeisance, Democrats refused, and both sides began spewing red-hot rhetoric that makes them irreconcilable.
So half the electorate looks at George W. Bush and sees a courageous, plainspoken man of integrity, comparable to Churchill, whereas the other half thinks he's a dullard and a pipsqueak whose strings are pulled by corrupt corporate executives. Since support for Bush or Kerry has more to do with tribal affiliation than issues or suitability for office, neither the incumbent nor his opponent's performance on the campaign trail nor the latest news on the economy or the wars budge the polls more than a few points back and forth. Incredibly, only one or two percent of the electorate remains undecided.
In a few weeks, either the imperialists or the individualists will emerge triumphant. The winning constituency will claim the right to decide what kind of country the U.S. is and should be. In truth, however, the two tribes of postmodern American politics are too closely matched for any election to settle that question.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
DUBYA IS A BAD PREZ
because:
• Upon taking office after the most controversial election in American history, he had a responsibility to ensure that the nation's broken voting systems were fixed - and that he failed to meet that responsibility in time for this year's election.
• The massive tax cuts for the rich that he advocated have starved the federal treasury to such an extent that deficits are skyrocketing.
• He was wrong to promote trade policies that have done deep damage to U.S.-based manufacturing industries.
• He was wrong to neglect the economic slowdown that has caused a net loss of jobs during his presidency and has led to rising poverty rates.
• He was wrong to oppose calls to extend unemployment benefits as long-term unemployment approached a 20-year high during his tenure.
• He was wrong to set up an energy task force that took its cue from energy industry insiders while paying no heed to the concerns of environmentalists, consumers and communities.
• His administration should not have scrapped new workplace safety rules.
• It was wrong to tell Congress his Medicare reform bill would cost $400 billion over 10 years when his own analysts had reported that the bill would cost more than $500 billion - with much of the money going to increase pharmaceutical industry profits.
• The Alaskan wilderness, and our national parks and forests, are precious resources that should not be exploited.
• His appointees to the Federal Communications Commission were wrong to try to eliminate protections against media monopoly at the national and local levels.
• It was a dumb idea to push for enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act and then fail to fund it.
• He has failed to provide for homeland security because of his refusal to order inspections of cargo entering U.S. ports and being shipped in the cargo holds of U.S. planes.
• The Patriot Act was so broadly written as to pose a threat to the individual rights and liberties of Americans.