White House Struggles to Halt Flap Over Jobs Report By Steve Holland, Reuters

The White House on Thursday sought to contain the fallout over an overly optimistic forecast that 2.6 million jobs will be created this year and some Republicans expressed concern about the damage being done to President Bush.

Bush, who has distanced himself from the forecast as Democrats emphasize sluggish job growth, tried to change the subject by accusing Democrats of wanting to raise taxes by not making his tax cuts permanent. …

The chairman of Bush’s re-election campaign, Marc Racicot, continued a general Bush administration retreat from the president’s own job forecast saying the 2.6 million figure was only a “stated goal.” …

Since 112,000 jobs were created in January, meeting the goal would require adding an average 335,000 new jobs each month all year — well above the 166,000 per month predicted by a recent survey of forecasters by the Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter. [mjh: only 1,000 jobs were created in December 2003; nearly 3 million have been lost under Bush’s watch.]

In fact, the White House had implied that 3.8 million jobs would be created this year by projecting about 3 percent growth in the number of jobs in 2004.

Duhbya on ‘Meet The Press’

RUSSERT: The Bush-Cheney first three years, the unemployment rate has gone up 33 percent, there has been a loss of 2.2 million jobs. We’ve gone from a $281 billion surplus to a $521 billion deficit. The debt has gone from 5.7 trillion, to $7 trillion, up 23 percent. Based on that record, why should the American people rehire you as CEO?

BUSH: Sure, because I have been the President during a time of tremendous stress on our economy and made the decisions necessary to lead that would enhance recovery. …

RUSSERT: But when you proposed your first tax cut in 2001, you said this was going to generate 800,000 new jobs. Your tax cut of 2003, create a million new jobs. That has not happened.

BUSH: Well, it’s happening. It’s happening. And there is good momentum when it comes to the creation of new jobs. …

RUSSERT: How, why, as a fiscal conservative as you like to call yourself, would you allow a $500 billion deficit and this kind of deficit disaster?

BUSH: Sure. The budget I just proposed to the Congress cuts the deficit in half in five years. …

RUSSERT: That’s a very important point. Every president since the Civil War who has gone to war has raised taxes, not cut them.

BUSH: Yeah.

RUSSERT: Raised to pay for it. Why not say, I will not cut taxes any more until we have balanced the budget? If our situation is so precious and delicate because of the war, why do you keep cutting taxes and draining money from the treasury?

BUSH: Well, because I believe that the best way to stimulate economic growth is to let people keep more of their own money. …

RUSSERT: How about no more tax cuts until the budget is balanced?

BUSH: Well, that’s a hypothetical question which I can’t answer to you because I don’t know how strong the economy is going to be. …

RUSSERT: Are you prepared to lose?

BUSH: No, I’m not going to lose. [mjh: is that just confidence?]

RUSSERT: If you did, what would you do?

BUSH: Well, I don’t plan on losing. I have got a vision for what I want to do to for the country. See, I know exactly where I want to lead. I want to lead us, I want to lead this world toward more peace and freedom. I want to lead this great country to work with others to change the world in positive ways, particularly as we fight the war on terror, and we got changing times here in America, too. [mjh: what with American Fascism and all that.]

Bush makes pitch for making tax cuts permanent

President Bush on Thursday pressed his election-year complaints against ”tax raisers and spenders in Washington,” arguing that failure to make administration-backed tax cuts permanent would raise taxpayers’ bills by billions.

”When you hear people say, ‘Oh, let’s just let the tax cuts expire,’ it’s a tax increase,” Bush said in an event at the White House to promote his economic record. ”It’s a code word for, ‘I’m raising your taxes,’ to increase the amount of money we have to spend here in Washington on new programs, on programs that meet a particular political desire of the appropriators.”

These tax cuts were a big mistake, but now any move to correct that mistake can be attacked simple-mindedly as an increase. mjh

Scientists Say Administration Distorts Facts By JAMES GLANZ, NYTimes

More than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement yesterday asserting that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad.

The sweeping accusations were later discussed in a conference call organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization that focuses on technical issues and has often taken stands at odds with administration policy. On Wednesday, the organization also issued a 38-page report detailing its accusations.

The two documents accuse the administration of repeatedly censoring and suppressing reports by its own scientists, stacking advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbanding government panels that provide unwanted advice and refusing to seek any independent scientific expertise in some cases.

“Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systemically nor on so wide a front,” the statement from the scientists said, adding that they believed the administration had “misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies.” …

According to the report, the Bush administration has misrepresented scientific consensus on global warming, censored at least one report on climate change, manipulated scientific findings on the emissions of mercury from power plants and suppressed information on condom use.

The report asserts that the administration also allowed industries with conflicts of interest to influence technical advisory committees, disbanded for political reasons one panel on arms control and subjected other prospective members of scientific panels to political litmus tests. …

“I am concerned that the scientific advice coming into this administration seems to me very narrow,” said Dr. Drell, who has advised the government on issues of national security for some 40 years and has served in Democratic and Republican administrations, including those of Presidents Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson. “The input from individuals whose views are not in the main line of their policy don’t seem to be sought or welcomed,” he said.

Bush and many of his supporters believe god created the universe a few thousand years ago. They ridicule the notion of global warming. They believe in ”creation science”, not evolution. They believe the Bible is literally god’s word and not subject to any intepretation (though they seem to interpret it plenty). Bush and his followers are the true American Taliban — you pray with them or they are against you. mjh

Op-Ed Contributor: More Jobs to the Gallon

The Bush administration has issued a proposal that would weaken one of the nation’s most successful environmental laws. The administration’s plan would change current automotive fuel economy standards and allow a loophole that would hurt the environment, auto workers and the economy. …

Under current law, automakers are required to meet an average fuel economy standard for their fleets of cars and light trucks. They can make vehicles that fall below the average so long as they make enough that exceed it. By requiring an average fuel economy of 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 20.7 for light trucks, current standards save more than 2.8 million barrels of oil per day while reducing heat-trapping global warming emissions by nearly 600 million tons per year. [mjh: my Toyota light truck gets 27 mpg.] …

The Bush administration is proposing to scrap these standards for a new system that would establish a series of vehicle weight categories, with a separate standard for each category. Basically, heavier vehicles would have lower fuel standards. Since they would no longer need to meet a fleetwide average, automakers would be free to add weight to all of their vehicles to make them qualify for heavier weight categories.

The result would be a reduction in overall fuel economy and an increase in pollution. America’s dependence on foreign oil would increase, and our environment would suffer.

The shift to a weight-based system could also jeopardize the jobs of thousands of Americans who work, either directly or indirectly, on the production of small cars. …

Even some automakers have expressed concern about these new standards, preferring the existing rules to uncertain new requirements.

The Sierra Club and the United Auto Workers do not always agree on automobile policy. We do agree, however, that the Bush administration’s proposal would destroy American jobs, reduce fuel economy and increase global warming emissions — and add to the burdens of an already struggling auto industry.

Carl Pope is executive director of the Sierra Club. Ron Gettelfinger is president of the U.A.W.

Turns out Bush really is a uniter — of people who oppose him. Well, you’re with him or you’re against him. mjh

Ralph, Don’t Run!

Keep Nader out of this race.mjh

Nader 2004 Presidential Exploratory Committee

A message from Ralph Nader:

Welcome to our exploratory website, which could be subtitled — for both you and me — ”keep an open mind and evaluate the variables.”

President’s Budget Is Out of Touch With American Conservation Values

The President’s Budget showcases the Administration’s real priorities for the year. That’s because, once all the talking is over, what gets funded is what gets done. This year, the budget lays out a disturbing under-investment in the parks, forests and wildlife refuges that form a critical piece of what makes America a beautiful and unique country. This budget weakens protection of America’s lands and includes provisions that would make it easier to sell public lands for private profit. Then it adds insult to injury by using ‘smoke and mirrors’ budget tricks to try to mask these cuts.

Clearing away the sleight-of-hand, this budget:

* Falls far short (to the tune of almost $600 million) of the President’s claim that he is “fully funding” the Land and Water Conservation fund;

* Assumes revenue from opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling;

* Opens the door for a sell-off of wildlands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

In good times and in bad, we have always invested in the places and wildlife that make America special. This budget is out of touch with mainstream American values and priorities. Americans want and deserve a consistent commitment to conservation spending.

Why Bush stopped flying remains a mystery By Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY

The positive descriptions of Bush’s military service make his sudden decision to quit flying in the spring of 1972 — two years before his pilot commitment was up — all the more puzzling. …

* Bush was accepted into pilot school even though he scored in the 25th percentile on a standardized test. The test was given to all prospective pilots and there was no specific score that disqualified a candidate. In addition, Bush had two arrests for college pranks and four traffic offenses before applying for pilot training. Former and current military pilots say it was uncommon for an applicant to be approved for training with such a record.

* There is no record of a formal procedure called a “flying evaluation board,” which normally would have been convened once Bush stopped flying in April 1972.

* Bush’s records do not show he was given another job in the Air Guard once he quit flying. Pilots and Bush comrades say his records should reflect some type of new duties he was assigned. …

A contemporary of Bush, Dean Roome, a former Texas Air National Guard fighter pilot, was Bush’s roommate when they were flying in Houston. … During a telephone interview with USA TODAY in 2002, Roome described Bush’s career as mercurial; the first three years were outstanding, the final two troubled. “You wonder if you know who George Bush is,” Roome said.

“I think he digressed after awhile,” he said. “In the first half, he was gung-ho. … Where George failed was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his life.”

Contacted by e-mail last week, Roome pulled back from those comments.