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May
Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press! Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary
The Morning Murmur – Thursday, May 18, 2006
1. U.S. Budget Deficit Will Be Halved Ahead of Schedule, Snow Says - Bloomberg
Surging tax revenue will help President George W. Bush meet his
deficit-reduction pledge ahead of schedule, Treasury Secretary John Snow
said. Tax revenue has surged along with growth in the economy.
2. For Love of Money - Human Events
The media view tax cuts as a "cost" to the government. This subtlety
promotes the idea that the government owns your money already, and if they
allow you to keep what you've earned, they are cutting you a break. And as
long as the media continue to elevate wealth-bashing above facts, the
quality of journalism will suffer.
3. 'GOP gloom - Washington Times Op-ed
It seems some conservatives journalist have a case of selective amnesia,
overcome by the anti-Republican aroma in a Washington atmosphere with a nose
that only smells bad news. How soon they forget the successes of the
Republican majority.
4. The Speaker's Wrath - Chicago Sun-Times
Speaker Hastert engaged in a high decibel rant last week when he met with
Vice President Cheney. The Speaker was enraged by the sacking of his friend
and former colleague, Porter Goss. With pessimism rising over a contemplated
loss of their majority in the 2006 elections, Republican lawmakers blame
their condition on Bush's performance.
5. U.S. Said to Weigh a New Approach on North Korea - New York Times
President Bush's top advisers have recommended a broad new approach to
dealing with North Korea that would include beginning negotiations on a
peace treaty, even while efforts to dismantle the country's nuclear program
are still under way.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. U.S. Budget Deficit Will Be
Halved Ahead of Schedule, Snow Says - Bloomberg
May 16 -- Surging tax revenue will help President George
W. Bush meet his deficit-reduction pledge ahead of schedule, Treasury
Secretary John Snow said.
``The president's target of cutting the deficit in half is going to be
exceeded and it's going to be done ahead of schedule,'' Snow said. ``We're
coming up on that target now.''
Bush promised to the cut the deficit in half to about 2 percent of gross
domestic product before he leaves office in 2009. Higher-than-expected tax
inflows mean the administration will reach that goal by the end of fiscal
2007 or even sooner, Snow said in a news conference in Washington today.
The White House originally said the deficit would reach a record $423
billion in the year that ends in September. The Congressional Budget Office
on May 4 said the deficit for this year could be as low as $300 billion.
The deficit in fiscal 2005 shrank for the first time in Bush's presidency,
narrowing to $319 billion, or 2.6 percent of gross domestic product. In
February, the White House said costs for hurricane relief and maintaining
forces in Iraq and Afghanistan would inflate the deficit to 3.2 percent of
the economy in the year ending Sept. 30.
The gap for the first seven months of the fiscal year totaled $184.1
billion, compared with $236.9 billion a year earlier, the Treasury said last
week.
Bush tomorrow will sign a $69 billion measure to extend tax cuts on
dividends and capital gains until 2010, a proposal that has been the
centerpiece of his economic policy this year. The measure also limits the
reach of the alternative minimum tax, a parallel system meant to ensure
wealthy people pay some tax even if they have large deductions.
Tax revenue has surged along with growth in the economy. Gross domestic
product expanded in the first quarter at an annual pace of 4.8 percent, the
fastest in more than two years, led by consumer spending and the biggest
jump in business investment since 2000.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=adRN14vmCkVg&refer=news_index#
2. For Love of Money - Human Events
by Amy Menefee
Posted May 18, 2006
Money is the root of all evil.
That seems to be the media's Sunday school lesson to audiences lately.
First, they demonized oil companies for making too much. Then they went
after individual CEOs. Most recently, they've once again turned on that
group that forever threatens the well-being of America: The Rich.
Yes, according to the press, Congress has again bowed to the wishes of The
Rich. It has cut them a huge tax break while the rest of America suffers and
the national debt soars from the "cost" of letting people keep more of their
own money. But the media, the Guardians of the Poor, are here to expose it
all. The multimillion-dollar anchors, like NBC's Brian Williams and
soon-to-be CBS's Katie Couric, are on the case! They are not at all aligned
with the interests of The Rich.
The tax cut "clearly favors the wealthy," said ABC's Betsy Stark. "Critics"
(which often means journalists) call it "a gift to the wealthy," said CBS's
Harry Smith. As usual, to put these comments in perspective, it's necessary
to examine two bodies of information: what the media are telling us, and
what they're not telling us.
They are telling us the newly-passed $70 billion tax relief bill benefits
The Rich. Obviously, a tax cut benefits only those who are paying taxes. As
the Tax Foundation has pointed out, 32 percent of those who filed federal
tax returns this year actually had no tax liability. Those people aren't
going to benefit from most tax cuts ... because that's hard to do when
you're not paying taxes to begin with.
They're also telling us tax cuts are bad for our debt. CBS's Bob Schieffer
said on May 10 that "critics ... remind us that any tax cut is just going to
drive the national debt higher."
There are two problems with that reasoning. One is the media view tax cuts
as a "cost" to the government. This subtlety promotes the idea that the
government owns your money already, and if they allow you to keep what
you've earned, they are cutting you a break. By keeping it, you are draining
the Treasury.
The other problem with the debt argument is that cutting taxes on capital
gains and dividends increases the incentive to invest. That leads to more
investment. More investment leads to more income. And more income means more
tax payments. Funny how that works.
As The Wall Street Journal noted on May 14, "The tax payments of the
wealthiest 3% of Americans increased at twice the rate of the tax payments
by everyone else from 2001-2004. And those richest 3% now pay nearly as much
income taxes as the other 97% combined." If politicians didn't spend every
penny that comes into Washington, perhaps we could start paying down the
debt with our higher tax revenues.
But the media tell us the debt is the tax cuts' fault. Meanwhile, what
aren't they telling us?
For starters, they're keeping mum about the ridiculous economic growth since
the tax cuts were enacted in 2003. America has added more than 5 million
jobs, and the unemployment rate has fallen from 6.3 percent to 4.7 percent.
It's as if they don't view that as a fact, but as merely a claim on one side
of a debate. NBC's Brian Williams said on May 10, "Republicans say the tax
cuts are helping the economy, but Democrats argue most of the benefits go to
the wealthiest Americans." It's difficult for viewers to get the facts about
the U.S. economy from reports like that.
Broadcasters also haven't been mentioning how upset they were over the
Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) just a few months ago. A large part of the
recent tax bill - $31 billion out of $70 billion - will go to AMT relief for
15 million middle-class families, which has had support from both parties
and the media.
Take CBS's Julie Chen for example. On the February 23 "Early Show," she was
gasping at the impact of the AMT on the middle class. "Oh, my goodness,"
Chen said, adding that "it really sounds like they need to change the tax
laws." But when Congress did just that, she said it was a Republican plan
and that "Democrats complain the bill favors the rich."
The media's suspicion of The Rich is a driving force behind much reporting.
But even the Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil. It says "the
love of money." That means elevating money above more important things. And
as long as the media continue to elevate wealth-bashing above facts, the
quality of journalism will suffer.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14949
3. GOP gloom - Washington Times Op-ed
By Gary J. Andres
Published May 18, 2006
Conservative columnists have a case of congressional crankiness. Take Peggy
Noonan at the Wall Street Journal, for example. She wrote last week that
Republicans on the Hill are so far off track it might take losing in
November to unlearn the lessons of power. Media critic Howard Kurtz of The
Washington Post found her mood so foreboding he suggested only Prozac might
lift conservatives' gathering gloom. Frustration among conservatives is both
palpable and understandable. Many believe -- accurately, I might add --
their pens played a role in promoting the emergence of the Republican
majority in Congress.
But frustration is also a communicable disease, and selective memory loss is
one of its symptoms. Conservatives may need a dose of remembrance and a
lesson in the limits of power the majority party faces in the modern
Congress. The same pens that helped inaugurate a Republican majority could
hand congressional gavels to liberal lawmakers by creating a pandemic of low
turnout among conservatives.
How soon we forget. When President Bush took office, the economy was
teetering on the brink of recession. The Republican Congress passed
legislation to cut taxes every year since Mr. Bush took office -- including
the latest signed into law yesterday, extending capital gains and dividends
tax cuts for two more years. These fiscal policies championed by
conservatives keep our economy surging forward, representing tangible
evidence that supplyside economics works. Don't bet that New York Democrat
Charlie Rangel as Ways and Means Committee chair would continue this
pattern.
Conservatives also promote legal reforms. In the last couple of years, the
Republican Congress passed and the president signed comprehensive
class-action reform, gun manufacturers' liability reform and bankruptcy
reform -- all over the vigorous objections of the left and their friends in
the trial bar. Michigan Democrat John Conyers certainly would not follow
this path as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
The Republican majority in Congress has been a bulwark defending the culture
of life. The 108th Congress passed and the president signed the Unborn
Victims of Violence Act and a partial birth abortion ban. California
Democrat Nancy Pelosi would not even schedule these items for a vote if she
were House speaker.
Republicans in the Senate defeated the left by confirming two outstanding
conservative jurists to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts and
Associate Justice Samuel Alito will put a conservative imprint on the court
possibly for decades.
The list could go on. It just seems some conservatives have a case of
selective amnesia, overcome by the anti-Republican aroma in a Washington
atmosphere with a nose that only smells bad news.
Have there been some missteps? You bet. But Republican lawmakers, like the
rest of us, are fallible. We elect politicians, not popes.
Frustrated conservatives should aim their fury at the real culprit -- the 45
Democratic senators who have the means and motive to block most conservative
initiatives. Consider what the House, where "majority" really means 50
percent plus one, has passed in the last several years: permanent tax cuts,
death tax elimination, medical malpractice reform, creating opportunity
zones in urban areas, welfare reform, child interstate abortion notification
and Head Start reform, to name a few. The House could have also adopted some
version of Social Security reform with personal accounts and tax
simplification had Senate prospects not been so bleak.
While Washington shorthand says Republicans hold the majority in the Senate,
the phrase is a misnomer in the modern Congress. The day after the 2004
election, I wrote in the Weekly Standard that conservatives should temper
their expectations despite a four-seat gain by Republicans: "A combination
of new Democratic tactics and old Senate rules still leaves the minority the
power to frustrate the Republicans' legislative agenda," I quoted former
Senate parliamentarian Bob Dove, "This is now a 60-vote chamber," and a
determined minority with 41 votes could block almost everything -- and they
usually do. Given these institutional rules and heightened partisanship,
it's surprising Republicans have enacted any conservative policies in the
past five years.
Instead of wallowing in frustration, conservatives need a new mantra:
There's more work to do. They should begin by painting a more realistic
picture of the meaning of "controlling" the Senate for conservative voters
and then promote the creation of a real majority by trying to elect five to
seven more Republican senators.
Prozac cannot lift the collective spirits of conservatives, but neither will
"Speaker" Pelosi.
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060517-082712-1381r.htm
4. The Speaker's Wrath - Chicago
Sun-Times
By Robert Novak
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, a 64-year-old ex-high
school wrestling coach, ordinarily is not a shouter. But according to
Capitol Hill sources, he engaged in a high decibel rant last week when he
met with Vice President Dick Cheney. The speaker was enraged by the sacking
of his friend and former colleague, Porter Goss.
Hastert was so vituperative that a private session with President George W.
Bush in the living quarters of the White House was scheduled immediately
(although Hastert aides said the meeting had been planned previously). The
speaker toned down his volume on the hallowed ground and did more listening
than talking. But the president did not slake Hastert's wrath over the
abrupt sacking of Goss as CIA director.
That wrath reflects the feeling in the House Republican cloakroom that Goss,
who gave up a safe congressional seat from Florida for a thankless cleanup
mission at the CIA, is being made a scapegoat for the government's
intelligence mess. But Hastert's discontent goes beyond the CIA. The GOP
mood on Capitol Hill, particularly the House, is poisonous. With pessimism
rising over a contemplated loss of their majority in the 2006 elections,
Republican lawmakers blame their parlous condition on Bush's performance.
Cheney was on the Hill last week to receive the Distinguished Service Award,
along with three other former House members: Lindy Boggs, Father Robert
Drinan and Goss. To Hastert and his Republican colleagues, this was
inadequate compensation for Goss' shabby treatment.
Hastert had urged Goss to postpone his retirement and seek another term in
Congress, and Bush then talked Goss into taking on the arduous mission of
bringing the CIA under presidential control. Two days before Goss was shown
the door, Hastert met with John Negroponte. The director of national
intelligence gave the speaker no hint that Hastert's friend at the CIA was
being fired.
Hastert, who served with Cheney in the House for two years (1987-88), let
the vice president have it in their private meeting. He said he trusted his
close friend Goss, who had performed well at the nasty job of cleaning out
an agency filled with critics of the president and his policies. The speaker
made clear he considered the crude treatment of Goss a personal insult.
Cheney took this so seriously that he quickly scheduled a White House
meeting of Bush and Hastert (that did not appear on public schedules of
either the president or the speaker). With the vice president sitting in,
Bush expressed his high regard for Goss. Hastert had criticized the choice
of Gen. Michael Hayden as Goss' successor, and Bush urged the speaker to
support the nominee.
It was not merely that Hastert and other House Republicans objected to the
sacking of Goss. They resented the demeaning way it was performed. In
particular, it could be inferred there was some scandalous reason for Goss'
departure. It has been incorrectly tied to published reports of Dusty Foggo,
Goss' handpicked No. 3 CIA official, being under investigation in the Duke
Cunningham bribery and corruption scandal.
Critics of Goss claim that, as a legislator, he was a poor administrator
(the complaint that habitually follows a high-profile sacking in
government). But they do not appreciate the anger Bush generated among Goss'
friends in Congress. One senior House Republican, asking that his name not
be used, told me: "Porter was unceremoniously kicked in the butt. He was
treated with contempt."
Correctly or not, the treatment of Goss has caused speculation in Congress
that Bush is making a peace offering to his critics at Langley. A president
waging a global war against terror can hardly function with an intelligence
agency whose employees make off-the-record speeches against his policies,
contribute to his political opponents and leak secrets to the news media.
Was getting rid of Goss the equivalent of a white flag of surrender?
Such interpretations suggest that there is basically non-communication
between Bush and fellow Republicans in Congress. The president had to summon
the speaker of the House to calm him down because he had given him no
heads-up earlier. More than difficulties at the CIA need to be resolved as
the GOP lurches toward the dreaded mid-term elections.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/the_speakers_wrath.html
5. U.S. Said to Weigh a New Approach on
North Korea - New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, May 17 - President Bush's top advisers have recommended a broad
new approach to dealing with North Korea that would include beginning
negotiations on a peace treaty, even while efforts to dismantle the
country's nuclear program are still under way, senior administration
officials and Asian diplomats say.
Aides say Mr. Bush is very likely to approve the new approach, which has
been hotly debated among different factions within the administration. But
he will not do so unless North Korea returns to multinational negotiations
over its nuclear program. The talks have been stalled since September.
North Koreans have long demanded a peace treaty, which would replace the
1953 armistice ending the Korean War.
For several years after he first took office, Mr. Bush vowed not to end
North Korea's economic and diplomatic isolation until it entirely dismantled
its nuclear program. That stance later softened, and the administration said
some benefits to North Korea could begin to flow as significant
dismantlement took place. Now, if the president allows talks about a peace
treaty to take place on a parallel track with six-nation talks on
disarmament, it will signal another major change of tactics.
The decision to consider a change may have been influenced in part by
growing concerns about Iran's nuclear program. One senior Asian official who
has been briefed on the administration's discussions about what to do next
said, "There is a sense that they can't leave Korea out there as a model for
what the Iranians hope to become - a nuclear state that can say no to
outside pressure."
But it is far from clear that North Korea would engage in any new
discussions, especially if they included talk of political change, human
rights, terrorism and an opening of the country, topics that the Bush
administration has insisted would have to be part of any comprehensive
discussions with North Korea.
With the war in Iraq and the nuclear dispute with Iran as distractions, many
top officials have all but given up hope that North Korea's government will
either disarm or collapse during Mr. Bush's remaining time in office.
Increasingly, they blame two of Mr. Bush's negotiating partners, South Korea
and China, which have poured aid into North Korea even while the United
States has tried to cut off its major sources of revenue.
In his first term, Mr. Bush said repeatedly that he would never "tolerate" a
nuclear North Korea. Now he rarely discusses the country's suspected
weapons. Instead, he has met in the Oval Office with escapees from the
country and used the events to discuss North Korea's prison camps and the
suffering of its people.
Mr. Bush has also been under subtle pressure to change the first-term talk
of speeding change of government. "Focusing on regime change as the road to
denuclearization confuses the issue," former Secretary of State Henry A.
Kissinger wrote in a lengthy op-ed article that appeared in The Washington
Post on Tuesday. Noting that the negotiations have been conducted by
Christopher R. Hill, a seasoned diplomat who played a major role in the
Dayton peace accords, which halted the civil war in Bosnia, he said,
"Periodic engagement at a higher level is needed."
A classified National Intelligence Estimate on North Korea, which was
circulated among senior officials earlier this year, concluded that the
North had probably fabricated the fuel for more than a half-dozen nuclear
weapons since the beginning of Mr. Bush's administration and was continuing
to produce roughly a bomb's worth of new plutonium each year. But in a show
of caution after the discovery of intelligence flaws in Iraq, the assessment
left unclear whether North Korea had actually turned that fuel into weapons.
With the six-nation negotiations over North Korea's nuclear program
appearing to go nowhere, the drive for a broader strategy was propelled by
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and one of her top aides, Philip D.
Zelikow, who drafted two papers describing the new approach.
Those papers touched off what one senior official called "a blizzard of
debate" over the next steps that eventually included Mr. Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney, who has been widely described by current and former
officials as leading the drive in Mr. Bush's first term to make sure the
North Korean government received no concessions from the United States until
all of its weapons and weapons sites were taken apart. It is unclear where
Mr. Cheney stands on the new approach that emerged from the State
Department.
Now, said one official who has participated in the recent internal debate,
"I think it is fair to say that many in the administration have come to the
conclusion that dealing head-on with the nuclear problem is simply too
difficult."
The official added, "So the question is whether it would help to try to end
the perpetual state of war" that has existed, at least on paper, for 53
years. "It may be another way to get there."
An agreement that was signed in September by North Korea and the five other
nations involved in the talks - the United States, South Korea, China, Japan
and Russia - commits the country to give up its weapons and rejoin the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty "at an early date" but leaves completely
unclear what would have to come first: disarmament or a series of steps that
would aid North Korea.
It also included a sentence that paves the way for the initiative
recommended to Mr. Bush, declaring that "the directly related parties will
negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate
separate forum." But it does not specify what steps North Korea would have
to take first.
As described by administration officials, none of whom would speak on the
record about deliberations inside the White House, Mr. Bush's aides envision
starting negotiations over a formal peace treaty that would include the
original signatories of the armistice - China, North Korea and the United
States, which signed on behalf of the United Nations. They would also add
South Korea, now the world's 11th-largest economy, which declined to sign
the original armistice.
Japan, Korea's colonial ruler in the first half of the 20th century, would
be excluded, as would Russia.
A National Security Council spokesman declined to comment on any internal
deliberations on North Korea policy and referred all questions to the State
Department, which has handled the negotiations with the North. The State
Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, declined to discuss the
recommendations made to Mr. Bush and said, "The most important decision is
with North Korea - and that is the strategic decision to give up their
nuclear weapons program."
"They signed a joint statement," he added, "but they have yet to demonstrate
that they have made a decision to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing
nuclear programs."
In justifying its refusal to return to talks, North Korea has complained
bitterly about the financial sanctions imposed by the United States, which
have been aimed at closing down the North's banking activities in Macao and
elsewhere in Asia. The United States has described those steps as "defensive
measures" intended to stop the country from counterfeiting American currency
and exporting drugs and missiles.
Even if peace treaty talks started, officials insisted, those sanctions
would continue. A month ago, Stephen J. Hadley, the national security
adviser, told a small audience of foreign policy experts that the sanctions
were "the first thing we have done that has gotten their attention," several
participants in the meeting said.
Some intelligence officials say they believe the protests may have arisen in
part because they affected a secretive operation in North Korea called Unit
39 that finances the personal activities of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean
leader, providing the money he spends for his entertainment and to win the
loyalty of others in the leadership.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/world/asia/18korea.html?hp&ex=1148011200&en=e93b4d0acc403f02&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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