What would you rather have the Administration spend $2 billion on?

[Gentle Giant]

How about education? Food and shelter for homeless, poor, and elderly people? Improved training for NFL referees?

Do the math:

Administration's PR detailed
Nonpartisan group says $1.6b includes promotional ads
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | February 14, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration spent more than $1.6 billion over a 30-month period on public relations and advertising contracts to promote its policies and programs, according to a report released yesterday by the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress.

The contracts included $2.5 million to present the Army's strategy in the global war on terrorism; $86 million to explain the new Medicare prescription drug benefit in a bilingual ad campaign; and $29,900 to warn the public of the ''consequences and potential dangers" of buying prescription drugs from foreign sources. The bulk of the spending -- slightly more than $1 billion -- went toward armed forces recruitment campaigns.

The Democrats who requested the study did not take issue with such spending, given the need to attract more military recruits. But they said White House spending on campaigns like the promotion of the war on terrorism and Bush's prescription drug programs warrant a closer look.

''The extent of the Bush administration's propaganda effort is unprecedented and disturbing," said Representative George Miller of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. ''I would hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would agree that changes need to be made to rein in the president's propaganda machine."

The report by the Government Accountability Office didn't say whether the White House had broken any laws, and noted that all of the advertising and public relations campaigns were paid for from the agencies' budgets. Federal appropriations laws generally prohibit any spending on publicity or propaganda, though the language is vague and enforcement is lax.

The use of paid media has been a recurring source of tension between the White House and Democrats in Congress. Those tensions increased when the administration acknowledged last year that conservative commentator Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind law, and that in 2002 syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher was paid $21,500 to help push a Bush administration proposal to encourage marriage.

Last February, after the GAO condemned what the White House called ''video news releases" -- prepackaged tapes that promote government policies but look and sound like broadcast news -- Congress ordered such stories to include ''clear notification" that an executive-branch government agency paid for and produced the tapes. In July, the White House adopted that as a formal policy.

Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said the use of advertising and public relations firms is critical to informing the public about government services and the administration has clear rules in place. ''Any agency's use of public relations support for their communications effort is legal, and it helps disseminate important information to the public," Perino said.

The GAO said it can't compare the $1.6 billion the Bush White House has spent with spending by previous administrations because the issue hasn't been studied before. The study examined promotional spending in seven Cabinet-level departments -- Commerce, Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs -- between early fiscal 2003 and the middle of fiscal 2005.

According to the report, the administration signed 343 contracts with public relations firms, advertising agencies, media agencies, and individuals between 2003 and 2005. The spending includes $1.4 billion paid to advertising firms and $197 million to public relations firms.

The money paid for a wide range of programs, including public education campaigns on endangered species, creation of interactive exhibits at national parks, and promotion of newly redesigned US currency -- a campaign that cost $54.4 million.

Some smaller contracts drew attention. The $2.5 million the Army spent on ''strategic perspective in the global war on terrorism" included developing ways to respond to critics of the war on terror. The Army also spent at least $1.1 million for ''news story development in support of soldiers" -- ways to get the media to report on positive stories. Democrats said the entry shows the White House used taxpayer dollars to help ''spin" the public in favor of the Iraq war and other initiatives.

''No amount of money will successfully sell the Bush Administration's failed policies," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in a statement yesterday.

The report provides details of the administration's effort to sell the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which Bush launched in January. According to the study, the administration spent $13.4 million for Spanish-language campaigns about the new program, and $72.9 million for ads in English.


'Don't ask' rule seen costing $363.8m
By Liz Sidoti, Associated Press | February 14, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Discharging troops under the Pentagon's policy on gays cost $363.8 million over 10 years, almost double what the government concluded a year ago, a private report says.

The report, to be released today by a University of California Blue Ribbon Commission, questioned the methodology the Government Accountability Office used when it estimated that the financial impact of the ''Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was at least $190.5 million.

''It builds on the previous findings and paints a more complete picture of the costs," said Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, who seeks to repeal the policy.

Congress approved the ''Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in 1993 during the Clinton administration. It allows gays and lesbians to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps as long as they abstain from homosexual activity and do not disclose their sexual orientation.

In February 2005, the GAO said the financial impact could not be completely estimated because the government does not collect financial information specific to each individual's case.

Cautioning that the figures may be too low, the GAO said the federal government spent at least $95.4 million to recruit and $95.1 million to train replacements from 1994 through 2003 for the 9,488 troops discharged during that period because of the policy.

The university study said the GAO erred by emphasizing the expense of replacing those who were discharged without taking into account the value the military lost from the departures.

[Gary Sisco]

At this point it would be a real bargain to just give them each a couple of billion and send their asses home to spend it.

[Dr Dave]

Nah, they'd blow it on hunting trips.

[Gary Sisco]

If they blew it up on each other, given both of their histories, it'd still be cheaper in the long run. Much, actually. I can't wait to hear about the Alfred E. Bush Library. It'll be the only one ever that has only a children's section.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Forget about going to school to become a teacher or a scientist. Go to become a PR man. What's that street in Manhattan? Madison Avenue? Basically our political landscape's becoming one big ad campaign.

[GregM]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

How about education? Food and shelter for homeless, poor, and elderly people? Improved training for NFL referees?

Iraq will be a much better return on the investment and besides, we need to deal with that part of the world more proactively.

[steve(thelil)]

I think they should spend it on Pez and/or Tang.


Always here to help.
s(tl)

[Gary Sisco]

Darryl -- I'd say you're closer to being right than even you intended. These guys don't even know who they are or what they think or believe until they've seen the results of "focus groups" and polls. And they can change overnight for the same reasons. Howard Dean is a prime example. He hadn't a liberal, much less a populist, cell in his body while he was in power as governor here, for 12 years. All of a sudden, in his 50s, he tries to make like he's something other than what he had been until then. And failed. As he should have.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Gary,

Some Bush aide said "we create our own reality". To me that means you manipulate the facts (spin) to convince those around you that their reality, despite evidence to the contrary, is our reality.

Who's better at covincing than an ad man? Drink a certain brand of beer and the next thing you know you're surrounded by super models. Use a certain aftershave and you're irresistable to all women despite the fact you may look like Stanley Crouch and have the breath of a pig.

It's not just Bush of course. Maybe we're seeing the culmination of some process started a long time ago. Clinton was the "Man from Hope" and he gave us NAFTA. Bush I was a man of the people because he liked pork rinds but didn't like broccolli. Hell, we had an dementia addled president running things for about 8 years and no one did anything about it. "Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain".

[crawjo]

Funding for students looking to spend a couple years living in Namibia...

[kenny weir]

Box sets for us!

[Gary Sisco]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

Gary,

Drink a certain brand of beer and the next thing you know you're surrounded by super models. Use a certain aftershave and you're irresistable to all women despite the fact you may look like Stanley Crouch and have the breath of a pig.

Now that's fucking funny, D. He is one ugly motherfucker, I always thought. A face made for radio.

[Monte Smith]

What would you rather have the Administration spend $2 billion on?




The two billion is just feeder money.

[Gordon B]

I'd rather they didn't spend it at all.

[MRS]

I'd rather have the administration spend $2 billion on the guy with the biggest cock in the world giving my leader mushroom stamps all over his body, spitting too.

[Solo Jazz]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

What would you rather have the Administration spend $2 billion on?

....The two billion is just feeder money.

True DAT!

I think Forbes listed Gates' net-worth at forty-eight (48) billion two years ago.

That two billion is not much money has recent significants to me in that the Bush administration/Congress pledged circa 3 billion dollars to fix the levee situation in New Orleans. Water-management experts say to make New Orleans safe, it will require at least thirty (30) billion.

Summarily, in the grand-scheme of things two billion is not what it use to be (LoL)! That said, if any JC'er happens to have this kind of 'loose-change' laying-about, I'd be more than happy to take it off your hands!

...that is all....

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

I'd rather they didn't spend it at all.

+1

[Daniel]

yeah screw the poor, elderly and homeless

What would you rather have the Administration spend $2 billion on?

How 'bout Haiti? They could use our help. Maybe Colombia, we've got to win the war on drugs. Maybe give a little more to Afghanistan to help out with their crop over there, because they need to be self sufficient.

I think I'll be an gov combination finance/social adviser.

Wouldn't want it to go to education and the elderly.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Daniel

yeah screw the poor, elderly and homeless

Still using too much starch in your undies, eh Daniel?