March 9, 2006:Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain dates on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.
Bush’s signing statement: The president can order Justice Dept. officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.
Law passed by Congress on Dec. 30, 2005: When requested, scientific information ‘’prepared by government researchers shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay.“
Bush’s signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.
Law passed by Congress on Dec. 17, 2004: The new national intelligence director shall recruit and train women and minorities to be spies, analysts, and translators in order to ensure diversity in the intelligence community.
Bush’s signing statement: The executive branch shall construe the law in a manner consistent with a constitutional clause guaranteeing ‘’equal protection“ for all. (In 2003, the Bush administration argued against race conscious affirmative action programs in a Supreme Court case. The court rejected Bush’s view.)
Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.
Bush’s signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the law will be construed ‘’as advisory in nature.“
Nov. 5, 2002: Creates an Institute of Education Sciences whose director may conduct and publish research ‘’without the approval of the secretary“ of education.
Bush’s signing statement: The president has the power to control the actions of all executive branch officials, so ”the Institute of Education Sciences shall be subject to the direction of the secretary of education.
Aug. 8, 2005: The Department of Energy & the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may not fire or otherwise punish an employee whistle blower who tells Congress about possible wrongdoing.
Bush’s signing statement: The president or his appointees will determine whether employees of the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give information to Congress.
Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Bush’s signing statement: The president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.
Oct. 29, 2004: Defense Dept. personnel are prohibited from interfering with the ability of military lawyers to give independent legal advice to their commanders.
Bush’s signing statement: All military attorneys are bound to follow legal conclusions reached by the administration’s lawyers in the Justice Department and the Pentagon when giving advice to their commanders.
Aug. 5, 2004: The military cannot add to its files any illegally gathered intelligence, including information obtained about Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches.
Bush’s signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can tell the military whether or not it can use any specific piece of intelligence.
Law passed by Congress on Nov. 6, 2003: US officials in Iraq cannot prevent an inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority from carrying out any investigation. The inspector general must tell Congress if officials refuse to cooperate with his inquiries.
Signing statement: The inspector general ‘’shall refrain“ from investigating anything involving sensitive plans, intelligence, national security, or anything already being investigated by the Pentagon. The inspector cannot tell Congress anything if the president decides that disclosing the information would impair foreign relations, national security, or executive branch operations.
Environmentalists said Bush had ignored a finding by more than 3,000 international scientists who concurred that the gas is one of the main causes of global warming. Last week, satellite data showed evidence that greenhouse gases were indeed building up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
In New England, Bush’s abandonment of the campaign pledge to propose regulating carbon dioxide emissions probably will have limited impact, because the region is less dependent than elsewhere on power plants fired by coal or oil. Administration officials said Bush had made a mistake in the campaign by promising to regulate carbon dioxide.
In fact, Bush only flew from June 1970 until April 1972. That month he ceased flying altogether, two years before his military commitment ended, an unusual step that has left some veteran fighter pilots puzzled.
A group of Vietnam veterans recently offered a $3,500 reward for anyone who can verify Bush’s claim that he performed service at a Montgomery air guard unit in 1972, when Bush was temporarily in Alabama working on a political campaign. So far, no one has come forward.
A Bush campaign spokesman acknowledged last week that he knows of no witnesses who can attest to Bush’s attendance at drills after he returned to Houston in late 1972 and before his early release from the Guard in September 1973.
The Bush campaign’s initial explanation for the lapse “incomplete records,” it now admits, was wrong. An Air Reserve official said last week that they now believe that Bush met minimum drill requirements before his discharge.
The result is that Bush’s discharge was “honorable.” Other current and retired Air Force officers said Bush’s military records are much like those of countless other Guardsmen at the time: guardsmen who lost interest in their units, and commanders who found it easier to muster them out than hold them to a commitment many made to avoid Vietnam.
While Bush is correct that Gore’s spending proposals exceed his, the combination of Bush’s spending plans and tax cuts would eat up more of the surplus than Gore would with his more modest tax cut and his larger spending plans.
To further complicate matters, Bush said Gore’s spending proposals are greater than the combination of what Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis proposed in 1984 and 1988, respectively. However, it appears Bush arrived at the number by using inflation-adjusted spending proposals and comparing them with estimates of Gore’s spending plans prepared by partisan groups such as the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Commitee. Gore’s total spending, according to the campaign, would be about $88 billion a year, not the $127 billion the Bush camp contends.
In 1995 Bush vetoed a patient’s bill of rights, one that contained many of the provisions that he praised last night: report cards on health maintenance organizations, liberal emergency room access, and the elimination of a gag clause forbidding doctors from telling patients about more costly treatment options than HMO coverage.
At the time, Bush said these provisions would be too costly to business. Bush did sign some of the provisions into law two years later. But he opposed the right to sue HMOs in court, a right last night he termed “interesting.” But a bipartisan, veto-proof majority in the Texas Legislature supported the right to sue. Bush let the provision go into law without his signature.
ANALYSIS: Bush is basing his claims on a partisan report by the Republican members of the Senate Budget Committee. To get their numbers, they applied today’s ratio of employees to expenditures to their own estimates of Gore’s budget. The assumption-that more spending means more employees-DOESN“T NECESSARILY FOLLOW. In fact, during the 1990s, spending went up (by 38%) while the federal work force went down (by 12%).
ANALYSIS: Bush’s $475 billion in spending initiatives would incur $100 billion in interest costs because that money won’t be used to pay down the debt. Adding that to his total, he’s really spending roughly $575 billion or 13% of the surplus on “important projects.” That’s SIGNIFCANTLY LESS than the “1/4 of the surplus” that he claimed. And his $1.3 trillion tax cut, plus the $300 billion interest cots it would require, would eat up about 35% of the available surplus, a LOT MORE than the 1/4 he claims.
| Bush’s ideal fractions | More realistic numbers |
|---|---|
| 50% for Social Security | 52% for Social Security |
| 25% for important projects | 13% for important projects |
| 25% back to people who pay bills | 35% back to people who pay bills |
BUSH: I cannot let this go by. Under my plan, the man gets immediate help with prescription drugs.“
ANALYSIS: This is NOT TRUE. They would not get immediate help because their income exceeds 175% of the federal poverty level. They would get help only after their bills exceeded $6,000. But a poorer family would get immediate help.
Clinton has requested $19.26 billion for antidrug measures in the fiscal 2001 budget, and has increased the drug-fighting budget more than $6 billion since 1993. A Bush aide said the governor’s five-year, $2.8 billion plan would be in addition to the current baseline budget laid out by the Clinton White House. Gore is proposing antidrug measures that would cost $5.3 billion over 10 years.
Among Bush’s proposals are providing $1 billion to states for treatment programs and conducting a state-by-state inventory of treatment needs and capacity, and increasing funding for the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act by $1 billion over 5 years.
Gore aides dismissed the Bush statistics, saying they did not take the overall picture into account. Since 1992, the number of drug users ages 25 to 34 has dropped 39%, and drug use by teenagers ages 12 to 17 declined 21% between 1997 and 1999, a Gore spokesman said: He added, “Al Gore and this administration proposed the largest antidrug budget ever and under this administration drug arrests are up while drug use is down.”
’’We will bring to the INS a new standard of service and a culture of respect,’’ Bush said. The new spending, to be doled out over five years, is the latest part of an INS overhaul plan that Bush’s campaign believes will resonate with Latino voters. ‘’We’ve got an INS that is too bureaucratic, too stuck in the past,’’ he said.
Last week, Bush announced that he wants to split the INS into two agencies: one for legitimate immigrants and one for border enforcement. He also proposed allowing relatives of permanent residents to visit the US while their own immigration papers are being processed.
| Bush | Gore |
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| Unanswered questions | |
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Bush wants to provide an income tax deduction to anyone buying long-term care insurance. The deduction, now available only to people who itemize and have big medical expenses, would apply to everyone except those on employer-subsidized long-term care plans. The campaign estimated the cost of that portion of Bush’s proposal at $5.1 billion.
Also, Bush proposed an additional tax exemption for elderly spouses, parents, or other relatives cared for in one’s home. That exemption is currently $2,750 a year. The campaign estimated the cost of that second proposal at $2.3 billion over 5 years.
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The above quotations are from Media coverage of MA political races in The Boston Globe.
Click here for other excerpts from Media coverage of MA political races in The Boston Globe. Click here for other excerpts by George W. Bush. Click here for a profile of George W. Bush.
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