Letter to the Editor
In spite of administration hopes it will be impossible for Bush to be reelected this year for one simple reason - Bush was never elected in the first place.
Washington has been channelling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the political opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - including those who briefly overthrew the democratically elected leader in a coup two years ago.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that, in 2002, America paid more than a million dollars to those political groups in what it claims is an ongoing effort to build democracy and "strengthen political parties". Mr Chavez has seized on the information, telling Washington to "get its hands off Venezuela".
The revelation about America's funding of Mr Chavez's opponents comes as the president is facing a possible recall referendum and has been rocked by a series of violent street demonstrations in which at least eight people have died. His opponents, who include politicians, some labour leaders, media executives and former managers at the state oil company, are trying to collect sufficient signatures to force a national vote. The documents reveal that one of the group's organising the collection of signatures - Sumate - received $53,400 (£30,000) from the US last September.
Jeremy Bigwood, a Washington-based freelance journalist who obtained the documents, yesterday told The Independent: "This repeats a pattern started in Nicaragua in the election of 1990 when [the US] spent $20 per voter to get rid of [the Sandinista President Daniel] Ortega. It's done in the name of democracy but it's rather hypocritical. Venezuela does have a democratically elected President who won the popular vote which is not the case with the US."
The funding has been made by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) a non-profit agency financed entirely by Congress. It distributes $40m (£22m) a year to various groups in what it says is an effort to strengthen democracy.
But critics of the NED say the organisation routinely meddles in other countries' affairs to support groups that believe in free enterprise, minimal government intervention in the economy and opposition to socialism in any form. In recent years, the NED has channelled funds to the political opponents of the recently ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the same time that Washington was blocking loans to his government.
"It the sort of stuff that used to be done by the CIA," said Mr Bigwood. "I am not particularly interested in Mr Chavez - I am interested in what Washington is doing." In Venezuela, the NED channelled the money to three of its four main operational "wings": the international arms of the Republican and Democratic parties - the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs respectively - and the foreign policy wing of the AFL-CIO union, the American Centre for International Labour Solidarity.
These groups ran workshops, training sessions and provided free advice to three political parties in Venezuela - Democratic Action, Copei and First Justice - the leaderships of which have been at the forefront of efforts to recall Mr Chavez.
Chris Sabatini, the director of the NED for Latin America, claimed the organisation's aim is to promote democracy and "build political space". He told the New York Times that the endowment had been working with civic groups in Venezuela with no political ties and human rights groups.
Relations between the US and Venezuela have not been so tense since April 2002 when Mr Chavez was briefly ousted by opponents who had been supported by the US in the run-up to the coup. At the time, Washington blamed Mr Chavez for his own downfall.
Washington's antipathy towards Mr Chavez is fuelled by his friendship with Cuba's Fidel Castro and his open criticism of Washington-backed free market policies. But Venezuela is also America's fourth largest supplier of oil - something that gives Mr Chavez a degree of leverage but, at the same time, makes him vulnerable to those who would like to see a more pro-American leader in power.
In recent days, Caracas and other cities have been rocked by demonstrations in support of the recall vote. Those intensified after the supposedly independent elections council ruled that government opponents lacked enough total signatures to force the vote. There have also been large and vociferous marches by thousands of supporters of the president who oppose the vote.
WASHINGTON - The nation's top Medicare cost analyst confirmed yesterday that his former boss had ordered him to withhold from lawmakers unfavorable cost estimates about the Medicare prescription-drug bill. He said the estimates exceeded what Congress seemed willing to accept by more than $100 billion.
Richard Foster, chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said that in early June he received a written note from Thomas Scully, then the centers' administrator, ordering him to ignore information requests from members of Congress who were drafting the drug bill.
The Inquirer Washington Bureau reported the episode in an exclusive published yesterday, but Foster's comments were his first on the matter. Yesterday, House and Senate leaders called for investigations into the alleged muzzling. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D., S.D.) said the allegations justified reopening the vote on the drug benefit. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.) wrote President Bush demanding to know what cost estimates he used in pushing the new drug benefit, which Congress passed in November and which Bush signed into law Dec. 8.
Scully's note, Foster said, "was a direct order not to respond to certain requests and instead to provide the responses to him and warn about the consequences of insubordination."
The note was Scully's first threat in writing, according to Foster, and came after at least three less formal threats.
They "came in different forms," he said. "Sometimes he would make a comment that 'I think I need another chief actuary,' or, 'If you want to work for the Ways and Means Committee, I can arrange it.' It was that sort of thing." Ways and Means was drafting the bill.
Efforts to reach Scully at his office and home yesterday were unsuccessful. In a recent interview, he denied closing off Foster's lines of communication with Congress. On only one occasion, Scully said, did he block Foster's contacts with lawmakers, in this case Democrats, saying their motives were purely political.
Foster said Scully insisted on a pattern of withholding of information.
"Estimates that were supportive of the legislation were generally released, and estimates that could be used to criticize the legislation were generally not released," Foster said.
He said he believed that higher-ranking members of the administration than Scully knew of the higher cost estimates his office had computed.
"Did the President know? Did Secretary Tommy Thompson know? I don't know," Foster said. Thompson heads the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Medicare office.
The White House press office did not respond to requests seeking comment.
The Inquirer reported yesterday that Foster's office had suggested that the drug benefit would cost at least $100 billion more than the $395 billion estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, whose job it is to project costs of legislation.
One projection prepared in early June by Foster's office and obtained by the Inquirer Washington Bureau concluded that a Senate version of the bill might cost as much as $551 billion.
At the time of the estimate, the House was sharply divided on the proposed new Medicare drug benefit, which the administration strongly backed. Ultimately, the House passed the measure, 216-215, on June 27. In November, it endorsed a House-Senate compromise version, 220-215; the yes votes included 13 Republican fiscal conservatives who had said they would vote against the bill if it cost more than $400 billion for its first 10 years.
When Bush signed the bill, the drug benefit was touted as costing $395 billion. In January, Bush's budget director, Joshua Bolten, raised the estimate to $534 billion.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn.) noted yesterday that Foster's estimates were based on different and costlier assumptions than those of the Congressional Budget Office.
Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson added: "If an individual's job was threatened and if they were trying to shield information from Congress, that could be an issue of concern."
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the Finance Committee, said Foster's estimates "should not have been withheld. Government analysts with relevant information should never be muzzled."
In a floor speech yesterday, Daschle called for reopening the vote on the drug benefit. He also called for an investigation into the firing threat and assertions that the administration had withheld its cost estimates from Congress.
"Whether this is criminal or not is a matter we will certainly want to clarify," Daschle said. "But if not criminal, it was certainly unethical. And I think we need to know the facts."
A group of House Democrats concurred, asking that the HHS inspector general investigate.
Foster, a senior civil servant, remains on his job. He said he had new and strong support from Thompson and from Medicare's newly confirmed chief, Mark McClellan.
Letter to the Editor
Bush's TV ads confuse me. He seems to be pointing out all his failures as if they were accomplishments. He uses 9-11 but is running from the investigating panel as if he were hiding something. He touts the economy but the economy is in the worst shape ever. Taxes are the highest ever - gas is at record high - government spending at record highs and increasing - record deficits - and state economies pushed to the verge of collapse. Schools are shutting down. Hospitals are closing. Greenspan is talking about rationing social security and medicare. Government spying on people. 2 million jobs lost. The country is falling apart. His ads are reminding us of his failures.