Bush Administration: Talking Points Self-Defense

Courtesy of the Progressive Report.

According to President Bush and his conservative allies, Congress is on the verge of abandoning U.S. forces in the field and passing "the largest tax increase in history." Of course, these doomsday talking points aren't true, but Bush is in a bind. Unlike him, Americans want U.S. forces to redeploy out of the civil war in Iraq. Americans believe providing basic health care for our children is a moral imperative. They believe the tax system should be rebalanced to reward work and not wealth; and that spending for veterans care and the Gulf Coast are emergency needs. So instead of arguing against these bills on the merits, President Bush and congressional conservatives are circulating demonstrably false talking points. Below, we take apart their spin:

FALSE CLAIM: 'FUNDING FOR TROOPS WILL RUN OUT IN MID-APRIL': The Bush administration has been trying to force Congress to abandon its support for an Iraq withdrawal time line by claiming that a “clean” Iraq spending bill must be signed by mid-April or U.S. troops will suffer. According to The Hill, the Pentagon and the White House have been "sounding alarms and sketching worst-case scenarios if Congress does not pass the 2007 supplemental by April 15." Renewing his veto threat on Wednesday, President Bush told Congress “the clock is ticking for our troops in the field," and that "funding for our forces in Iraq will begin to run out in mid-April." Meanwhile, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and others have been arguing that Bush is wrong, and that funds won’t dry up until June, giving plenty of time for negotiations. "We’ve never had a year where they didn’t give us bad information,” Murtha said. “We’ve been asking people and we think it’ll be the end of May." Now we know who’s right. A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service makes clear that Bush’s deadline is completely fabricated. According to the CRS, "the Army has enough money in its existing budget to fund operations and maintenance through the end of May — about $52.6 billion. If additional transfer authority is tapped, subject to Congress approving a reprogramming request, the Army would have enough funds to make it through nearly two additional months, or toward the end of July." Commenting on the report, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “This study confirms that the President is once again attempting to mislead the public and create an artificial atmosphere of anxiety. He is using scare tactics to defeat bipartisan legislation that would change course in Iraq.

”FALSE CLAIM: 'WE OPPOSE THIS BILL BECAUSE IT HAS DOMESTIC SPENDING': Conservatives are also claiming they oppose the emergency spending bill because it includes money for domestic priorities, including aide for veterans, children's health care funds, and housing assistance and reconstruction funds for the Gulf Coast. During his radio address Saturday, President Bush complained that the emergency bills were "loaded up...with billions of dollars in domestic spending completely unrelated to the war." This from the same President Bush who has engineered tens of millions of dollars in executive earmarks, and never once vetoed any of Congress’s previous pork-laden spending bills. Likewise, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) claimed he opposed the emergency spending bill because it "heap[s] pork on the backs of our men and women in uniform." This from the same Trent Lott who authored "the largest earmark ever," the $700 million "railroad to nowhere." The truth is that Bush and his conservative allies oppose this bill because it changes course in Iraq; they just don't want to make that their first argument, because they know it's so unpopular.

FALSE CLAIM: 'THE LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN HISTORY': President Bush said on Saturday that the annual budget resolutions passed recently by the House and Senate "would raise taxes by a total of nearly $400 billion over the next five years," which he described as "the largest tax increase in our Nation's history." This is the new right-wing talking point as conservative House leaders say they gear up for "a good old-fashioned tax fight." But it's false. There is no tax increase. Indeed, the House budget resolution is notable for its fiscal discipline, the first passed in years under pay-as-you-go rules. Consistent with those rules, which require that all tax cuts and entitlement increases be paid for, "the plan assumes the same level of revenues over the 2007-2012 period as projected by the Congressional Budget Office under its current-policy baseline; the baseline essentially assumes no change in current laws governing taxes." In other words, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states, "charges that the plan requires multi-hundred-billion dollar tax increases are not correct." Likewise, the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates for "responsible fiscal policy," calls the new budget a "successful first test of how seriously [House leaders] plan to abide by [the PAYGO] rule, [assuming] no entitlement expansions or tax cuts that are not fully offset." Ironically, the tax cut expiration dates conservatives are now attacking are the same ones they wrote and supported in 2001 and 2003.