Text 3327, 384 rader
Skriven 2007-01-02 18:53:00 av ROSS SAUER
Ärende: Reality
===============
Already the vultures in the "liberal" (yeah right) news media are making 
shit up about the democrats.

Media myths and falsehoods to look out for as Dems launch "100 hours" 
plan

Summary: 

In July, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA) began discussing a 
legislative agenda to be implemented in the first 100 hours of the 110th 
Congress, assuming her party gained control of the House of 
Representatives in the midterm elections. Specifically, she proposed 
that House Democrats push legislation to: raise the federal minimum 
wage; "break the link" between lobbyists and Congress; reinstitute "pay-
as-you-go" budget rules; enact all of the 9-11 Commission's 
recommendations; allow Medicare to bargain directly with drug companies; 
and expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Following the Democratic victories in the House and Senate on November 
7, Pelosi stated her intent to follow-through with this plan. In 
anticipation of the media frenzy that is sure to surround the Democrats' 
first week in power on Capitol Hill, Media Matters for America has 
compiled a list of falsehoods and baseless statements -- pushed by 
conservatives and often echoed by reporters and other media figures -- 
relating to those issues addressed by the "100 Hours" agenda.

Minimum wage

House Democrats intend to introduce legislation to raise the federal 
minimum wage to $7.25.

Minimum wage hike will result in job losses and discourage job creation. 
Conservatives commonly argue that increasing the minimum wage will 
negatively affect the economy, resulting in stagnating job growth and 
higher unemployment. However, numerous studies have examined recent 
increases in the minimum wage at both the federal and state level and 
found that higher wages do not result in job loss. One recent example is 
Oregon, which increased its minimum wage to $7.50 in 2002. Four years 
later, "Oregon's experience suggests the most strident doomsayers were 
wrong," according to a November 3 Wall Street Journal article. Indeed, 
private, nonfarm payrolls have increased there at twice the national 
rate, industries that employ many minimum-wage workers have experienced 
considerable job growth, and unemployment has dropped to 5.4 percent 
from 7.6 percent in 2002.
Only teenagers and part-time workers would benefit from wage increase. 
Conservative commentators have claimed that most employees who would 
benefit from the Democratic proposal to raise the federal minimum wage 
are "students and other part-time workers." In fact, while most workers 
earning the current minimum wage of $5.15 per hour are part-time 
workers, the majority of workers who would see their wages rise under 
the Democratic proposal are not. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) 
found that a majority -- 54 percent -- of those who would be affected by 
the Democratic minimum-wage proposal are full-time workers (at least 35 
hours a week). Similarly, an EPI study released October 25 found that 
"[i]f the federal minimum wage were increased to $7.25 per hour by 2008, 
14.9 million workers would see their wages rise," and those affected by 
a minimum-wage increase would be "mainly adults who typically work full 
time and provide significant income to their families."
Minimum wage increase will hurt small businesses. Another common 
argument against raising the minimum wage is that it will put an undue 
burden on small U.S. businesses. But an April 2004 study by the Fiscal 
Policy Institute found that, between 1998 and 2001, the number of small 
businesses (defined as those with less than 50 employees) grew twice as 
quickly in states with higher minimum wages. EPI has attempted to 
explain this phenomenon by pointing to "[n]ew economic models," which 
recognize that employers in low-wage labor markets "may be able to 
absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, 
lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and 
increased worker morale." This may also help explain why most small 
business owners (three out of four, according to a March 2006 Gallup 
poll) believe a higher minimum wage would have no effect on them.

Ethics

House Democrats intend to introduce legislation restricting lobbyist-
paid meals, gifts, and travel, and establishing an independent ethics 
panel to oversee lawmakers' activities.

Lobbyist-paid travel a wholly bipartisan problem. In reporting on the 
recent ethics reform efforts in Congress, some in the media have gone 
out of their way to depict both the Democrats and Republicans as equally 
corrupt. For instance, when the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) 
released an analysis of privately funded congressional travel in June, 
numerous news outlets obscured the fact that CPI had found far greater 
participation by Republican lawmakers and staff than by Democrats. 
Indeed, Republicans significantly outnumbered Democrats in all three of 
the indices used by CPI to determine Congress' "top travelers." These 
included: congressional offices that have accepted more than $350,000 in 
privately funded travel; congressional offices that have accepted more 
than 200 privately funded trips; and the 10 most expensive privately 
funded trips taken by members of congress or their staff. Of the 19 
lawmakers or congressional staffers listed in at least one of these 
categories, only four were Democrats.
Sen. Reid opposes creation of independent ethics office. On the November 
12 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert suggested that 
incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) opposes the creation 
of an independent Senate Office of Public Integrity and does not support 
"lobbying reform" in general. But as Media Matters noted, Reid 
introduced the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2006" on 
January 20, 2006, which called for the creation of the Senate Office of 
Public Integrity and sought to "provide more rigorous requirements with 
respect to disclosure and enforcement of ethics and lobbying laws and 
regulations."

Spending

House Democrats intend to introduce legislation fully reinstating "pay-
as-you-go" (PAYGO) budget rules, which require that all tax cuts and 
spending increases be offset by equivalent tax increases or spending 
cuts.

PAYGO did not contribute to elimination of budget deficit in '90s. When 
Democrats announced their intention in early 2006 to reinstate "pay-as-
you-go" (PAYGO) budgeting if they gained control of Congress, 
conservative media such as The Wall Street Journal editorial page 
derided the spending policy as a "ruse" (subscription required) and 
claimed that it had no effect on the elimination of the budget deficits 
during the 1990s. But in a December 2005 speech, then-Federal Reserve 
Chairman Alan Greenspan pointed to the "rules laid out in the Budget 
Enforcement Act of 1990" -- which included PAYGO -- as instrumental in 
establishing "a better fiscal policy" that ultimately led to "the brief 
emergence of surpluses in the late 1990s." Greenspan noted, however, 
that those surpluses led lawmakers to violate and ultimately abandon 
"the rules that helped constrain budgetary decisionmaking earlier in the 
1990s -- in particular, the limits on discretionary spending and PAYGO 
requirements." He added that the reinstatement of such rules "would 
signal a renewed commitment to fiscal restraint and help restore fiscal 
discipline to the annual budgeting process."
Democrats don't care about fiscal responsibility and curbing deficits. 
One narrative often pushed by the GOP and echoed by the media is that 
Democrats are big spenders with no interest in fiscal restraint, while 
Republicans are committed to small government and fiscal responsibility. 
But such claims overlook the relative economic records of the two most 
recent presidents. Indeed, budget deficits steadily shrank under 
President Bill Clinton, eventually resulting in large budget surpluses, 
while deficits have ballooned to record levels under President Bush.
Deficits under Bush are smaller -- as a percentage of the economy -- 
than under Clinton. Some conservatives, when faced with Democratic 
criticism of the Bush economic record, have claimed that the deficits 
under Bush -- when measured as a percentage of the gross domestic 
product -- are half the size of those experienced under Clinton. In 
fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the average federal 
budget deficit during Clinton's two terms (FY 1994 to FY 2001) was 0.1 
percent of GDP. Meanwhile, during Bush's first term (FY 2002 to FY 
2005), the average was 2.75 percent of GDP. 
On spending and taxes, Americans trust Republicans more than Democrats. 
During the 2006 elections, as numerous Democratic lawmakers and 
candidates decried the Republicans' economic policies, media figures 
regularly asserted that Americans trusted the Republicans more than the 
Democrats to handle taxes and federal spending. But as Media Matters 
noted, recent polling shows that more Americans trust Democrats more 
than Republicans to handle the issue of taxes. For example, the most 
recent Pew Research Center for the People and the Press poll on the 
subject, from October 22, showed a 40-percent-to-32 percent Democratic 
advantage on the issue. And according to an October 26-27 Newsweek poll, 
Americans also trust Democrats over Republicans to handle "federal 
spending and the deficit" by a 16-point margin, 47 percent to 31 
percent.

National security

House Democrats intend to introduce legislation enacting those 9-11 
Commission recommendations that Congress has yet to address.

9-11 Commission recommendations are either accomplished or un-
accomplishable. Some conservatives have dismissed Pelosi's pledge to 
enact all of the commission's recommendations as unrealistic, claiming 
that the proposals yet to be addressed are unfeasible. But as Media 
Matters noted, members of the commission have noted that several of the 
41 original recommendations could easily be implemented by a willing 
Congress. For instance, the Transportation Security Administration has 
yet to develop and distribute the "explosive detection trace portals" 
and cargo screening devices the commission recommended be installed at 
airports nationwide. Further, the commission's proposals to streamline 
and otherwise improve congressional oversight of the intelligence 
community have faced resistance from Republican leaders. 
Pelosi broke her 9-11 Commission recommendation pledge. In December, 
Pelosi unveiled (subscription required) a proposal to create a new House 
intelligence panel made up of members of the intelligence and 
appropriations committees. At a December 14 press conference, Pelosi 
said that the proposed Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, which would 
"be within the House Appropriations Committee," would "have the 
responsibility to hold hearings, to consider the budget for the 
intelligence." Pelosi said the proposal "removes the barriers between 
the House appropriators and authorizers, makes the oversight stronger 
and makes the American people safer." Additionally, The Wall Street 
Journal reported December 14: 

The membership of the new panel, Ms. Pelosi said in an interview, would 
be a "hybrid" drawn from the House Intelligence and Appropriations 
committees, and serve as a bridge of sorts between the two. Additional 
investigative staff will be hired for oversight, and the new panel would 
prepare the classified section to the annual Defense Department 
appropriations bill that covers much of the annual intelligence budget. 

Numerous Republican lawmakers subsequently accused Pelosi of breaking 
her pledge to enact all of the 9-11 Commission's recommendations. 
Specifically, they argued that Pelosi had declined to choose from the 
two options recommended by the commission on the matter of intelligence 
oversight: "either a joint committee on the old model of the Joint 
Committee on Atomic Energy or a single committee in each house combining 
authorizing and appropriating committees." 

But in arguing that Pelosi violated her pledge, critics apparently 
overlook the reactions of several former commissioners to her proposal. 
For instance, former Rep. Timothy Roemer (D-IN) described it as "a major 
step forward in terms of correcting some of the dysfunction on Capitol 
Hill." Moreover, Congressional Quarterly reported on December 15 that 
Pelosi's plan was "greeted as an improvement by several members of the 
Sept. 11 commission, Republican and Democrat": 

While several top Republicans in Congress have raised questions about 
the new panel or criticized it, it has been greeted as an improvement by 
several members of the Sept. 11 commission, Republican and Democrat.

"I view it as being a positive change," said Slade Gorton, a former 
commissioner and Republican senator from Washington (1981-1987, 1989-
2001). "It's certainly not all that the 9/11 commission recommended. 
Even we have to recognize the difficulty of treading on toes and 
invading the turf of numerous committee and subcommittee chairmen."

The new panel would devote more time to intelligence spending than 
appropriators for the Defense spending bill might otherwise, Gorton 
said, addressing one complaint of the commission.

"When you have to deal with the entire Defense appropriations bill, 
intelligence is likely to get short shrift," Gorton said.

The former chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, Thomas H. Kean, said the 
committee "sounds like a step in the right direction," but cautioned 
that he would have to see how it worked in practice.

He said the idea of commissioners was to strengthen the Intelligence 
Committee, something that might not happen if its members on the new 
panel were outnumbered by members of the Appropriations Committee by a 
count of six to three, as he has heard they would be. 

Health care

House Democrats intend to introduce legislation allowing Medicare to 
negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry.

Allowing Medicare to bargain with drug companies would not bring down 
prices. Bush administration officials have challenged Democrats' 
proposals to allow Medicare to directly negotiate prices with 
pharmaceutical companies by claiming that the 2005 Medicare prescription 
drug program (known as Part D) -- which allows private insurers to set 
drug prices -- has already saved seniors money and that "prices wouldn't 
come down" further under the Democratic plan. Media figures such as Wall 
Street Journal columnist David Wessel have seconded this opinion by 
asserting that Democrats will be hard-pressed "to make the benefit more 
generous" (subscription required). But recent studies have undermined 
these claims.
First, according to a June 2006 Families USA study, in the first six 
months after seniors began joining the new Medicare plan, "virtually all 
Part D plans raised their prices for most of the top 20 drugs prescribed 
to seniors." Second, Families USA found that, during the same period, 
"there were large differences in the prices charged by Part D plans 
compared to the prices secured by the" Veterans Administration, which 
bargains directly with drug companies. According to the study, "for half 
of the 20 drugs, the lowest price charged by any Part D plan was at 
least 46 percent higher than the lowest price secured by the VA." Third, 
The New York Times reported that drug makers are receiving "as much as 
20 percent more" from Part D participants "for the same drugs that they 
had already been providing to recipients under the Medicaid program," 
who receive a legally-mandated discount of at least 15 percent.

Stem cell research

House Democrats intend to re-introduce legislation -- vetoed by Bush in 
2006 -- to expand federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

Bush is the first president to federally fund stem cell research. Bush 
has repeatedly claimed -- and news outlets have often uncritically 
reported -- that he is "the first president ever to allow funding" for 
human embryonic stem cell research. In fact, while Bush is the first 
president to preside over the flow of federal funds to such research, 
President Clinton was the first to approve federal funding for these 
purposes. Indeed, in August 2000, the Clinton administration released 
new guidelines through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that 
allowed federally funded research on embryonic stem cells extracted in 
the private sector and established strict oversight of this research. 
These rules, however, had yet to be implemented when Clinton left office 
and were quickly suspended by the incoming Bush administration in favor 
of its own, stricter set of rules.
Bush authorized federal funding on 78 stem cell lines. Some news outlets 
have credited Bush with authorizing federal research on 78 stem cell 
lines that were created prior to August 9, 2001. But while the NIH does 
list 78 stem cell lines as being eligible for federal funding under 
Bush's 2001 policy, the NIH lists only 22 of them as currently 
"available" for federally funded research -- meaning of sufficient 
research "quality" and legally obtainable by U.S. researchers.

© 2007 Media Matters 

Of course, reality always has been something the "liberal" media has had 
trouble with...

Poll Finds Support For Democratic Issues

WASHINGTON -- People overwhelmingly support two of the Democrats' top 
goals - increasing the minimum wage and making it easier to buy 
prescription drugs from other countries - as the party takes control of 
Congress for the first time in a dozen years.

By a smaller margin, the public also favors relaxing restrictions on 
federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, a third issue Democrats 
have promised to tackle during their first 100 hours in charge.

The jury is out on incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Most people say 
they do not know enough yet to have an opinion about the California 
Democrat who will be the first woman in that office, an Associated Press-
AOL News poll found.

The survey results come as the 110th Congress is set to convene Thursday 
at noon. Voters last November toppled Republican majorities in both the 
Senate and House, exasperated by investigations into the ethics of GOP 
lawmakers and unhappy with the war in Iraq.

Democrats will hold a 233-202 edge in the House and will control the 
Senate by 51-49.

A boost to the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum wage would be the first 
since 1997. Democratic leaders have proposed raising it in stages to 
$7.25 an hour. President Bush has said he supports the idea, along with 
help for small businesses.

Fully 80 percent of survey respondents favor an increase, too.

Support is strongest among Democrats, 91 percent, while 65 percent of 
Republicans back the idea. Women, men without college degrees and single 
women all are especially likely to favor a minimum wage hike.

Nearly seven of 10 adults, 69 percent, favor the government taking steps 
to make it easier for people to buy prescription drugs from other 
countries, where some medicines cost significantly less than in the U.S.

Importing prescription drugs to the United States is illegal, but the 
Food and Drug Administration generally does not bar individuals from 
bringing in small amounts for personal use. At the same time, the 
government has estimated that buying drugs from other countries would do 
little to influence what they cost here at home.

Some 56 percent of adults support easing restrictions on using federal 
money to pay for research on embryonic stem cells. Supporters say such 
research could lead to treatments for everything from Parkinson's 
disease to spinal cord injuries. Bush and other opponents say the 
embryos from which the cells are extracted are human lives that should 
not be destroyed in the name of science.

Bush kept a promise in 2001 when he limited federally funded research to 
lines of embryonic stem cells that had been created by that time. Last 
summer, he used the first veto of his presidency to reject a bill that 
would have directed more federal dollars toward embryonic stem cell 
research.

Democrats have pledged to reverse that outcome, setting up a possible 
veto showdown with the president.

Achieving the Democrats' goals could help Pelosi raise her public 
profile.

She is the first woman to lead a party caucus in either house of 
Congress - she was elected leader of the House Democrats in 2002 - and 
now will be the first female speaker, second in line to succeed the 
president.

Yet as much as the 10-term congresswoman has been in the news over the 
years and, more recently, since the Democratic election rout on Nov. 7, 
people say they just don't know her.

More than five in 10 adults, 55 percent, don't know enough yet about 
Pelosi to have an opinion of her. Those with opinions to share were 
split, with 22 percent viewing her favorably and 22 percent unfavorably.

The telephone survey of 1,004 adults was conducted Dec. 19-21 by Ipsos, 
an international public opinion research company. The margin of sampling 
error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press.

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