"House Republicans on Thursday shut down an inquiry by Democrats into whether the Bush administration acted illegally or inappropriately last year when it withheld from Congress its estimates of the true cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill." [Medicare Secrecy Inquiry Is Silenced LA Times 04/02/2004 subscription]
At issue is the claim by whistle-blower Richard Foster that his then-boss Thomas A. Scully threatened to fire him if he revealed the true estimated costs of the then-pending Medicare bill.
This is important because passage of the Medicare bill was a struggle, with even some Republican reluctant to vote for it because they considered the $400 million estimate given to them by the Bush administration very high.
With some arm-twisting the bill passed, only to have lawmakers find out that the real estimated cost of the bill should have been $140 billion higher. It is likely that the bill would not have passed if the true cost estimate had been provided by the Bush administration.
Not too surprisingly, the current clamp-down was engineered by the Republican-dominated House Ways and Means Committee.
This is chaired by Republican Bill Thomas, the same Bill Thomas who called the police to remove committee Democrats. I know that's hard to believe, but you can read about it on the House site: Chairman Thomas Calls The Cops On Democrats After They Go To Committee Library To Meet On Pension Bill 7/18/2003.
This is in keeping with the general Republican approach of stifling dissent during this administration.
A few months ago, for example, the White House sent a memo to the staff of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, telling them that the White House would not answer questions from Democratic members unless they were approved by the Republican chairmen of the committees. Really.
What happened to this country? Aren't Republican politicians citizens, too? And shouldn't they understand that this is still a democracy?
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
What happened to this country? Aren't Republican politicians citizens, too? And shouldn't they understand that this is still a democracy?
this is in fact the reason why my lifelong republican friend won't be voting for bush.
she thinks they have crossed the line on acceptable behavior and its creepin' her out.
2 - mike
It's about to get worse. I like to think that all this corruption will catch up to Bush in his second term, but there is no law of history that bad behavoir is punished. Very often, the evildoers get away with it. Look at Robert McNamara. Not only has he escaped prosecution for his war crimes in Vietnam, he's undergoing a revival in his reputation.
I say Rove is laughing. He knows they've won the bet.
3 - Hal Pawluk
If you guys haven't read Paul Krugman's "The Great Unraveling," you might want to drop by the library and check out a copy.
I just posted a piece from his intro in the Heritage Foundation's thread "The Ten Myths of Job Outsourcing" (posted by, surprise, David Flanagan).
Krugman is bang on - a revolution is happening, and nobody wants to believe it, or say it out loud if they do.
4 - mike
They're not interested. Either they love the Revolutionary Power, or, like Eric Olsen, they are still stuck in this paradigm that things like this can't happen in America. I suspect they'll wake up the day Roe v Wade is overturned.
5 - David Flanagan
the same Bill Thomas who called the police to remove committee Democrats.
I remember that, it was disgraceful behaviour on the part of Bill Thomas. Its the kind of behaviour that sows the seeds for a return to minority status.
David
6 - Hal Pawluk
David:
I did get some time at the Heritage Foundation page you provided and expect to have a post up Monday.
Look for "DE-MYTHIFYING THE HERITAGE FOUNDATIONS 10 JOBS MYTHS" or something along those lines.
7 - boomcrashbaby
Bush admin. covers up 1 of the greatest environ. disaster in U.S. history:
source
apparently, they are making an art out of covering things up.