BUSH TO ALTER ECONOMIC STATS AGAIN

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
BUSH TO ALTER ECONOMIC STATS AGAIN
46
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 2:41pm


Last week, the Census Bureau released statistics showing that for the first time in years, poverty had increased for three straight years, while the number of Americans without health care increased to a record level. But instead of changing its economic and health care policies, the Bush administration today is announcing plans to change the way the statistics are compiled. The move is just the latest in a series of actions by the White House to doctor or eliminate longstanding and nonpartisan economic data collection methods.

In a Bush administration press release yesterday, the Census Bureau said next week it "will announce a new economic indicator" as "an additional tool to better understand" the economy. The change in statistics is being directed by Bush political appointees and comes just 60 days from the election. It will be the first modification of Census data in 40 years.

This is not the first time the White House has tried to doctor or manipulate economic data that exposed President Bush's failed policies. In the face of serious job losses last year, the Associated Press reported "the Bush administration has dropped the government's monthly report on mass layoffs, which also had been eliminated when President Bush's father was in office." Similarly, Business Week reported that the White House this year "unilaterally changed the start date of the last recession to benefit Bush's reelection bid." For almost 75 years, the start and end dates of recessions have been set by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private nonpartisan research group. But the Bush administration decided to toss aside the NBER, and simply declare that the recession started under President Clinton.

Sources:

1. "Census: Poverty up in 2003," The Olympian, 9/01/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2254501&l=52819.

2. Census Bureau press release, 8/31/04.

3. "Monthly report on mass layoffs dropped," Shawnee News-Star, 1/05/03, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2254501&l=52820.

4. "Inventing The 'Clinton Recession'," Business Week Online, 2/23/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2254501&l=52821.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 4:59pm
What kills me is that this is the Party of the sanctimonious that never tires of trying to ram "personal responsibility" down the throats of the poor. When their own inept policies blow up, however, it's the fault of....

* Clinton

* The Media

* Carter

* Terrorists

* Congress (although that one's out now since they control Congress)

* France, Germany, and/or Russia

* Liberals

* And when that fails they "move the goal posts" by either not reporting economic data or they change the way it's reported to try to avoid taking personal responsibility for the mess they've made of the economy.

And I guess we have to add to this list...

* But what did Kerry say over 30 years ago?

It's an absolute disgrace.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 6:07pm
Other so called womens issues brought to you by feminists like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, & Margaret Sanger are;

1. The right to vote

2. The right to a University education

3. The right to have control over your own earnings instead of your husband

3. The right to receive information about birth control, & the right to use it

Without these women & their struggles to obtain these rights, you would be unable to vote, uneducated, powerless to control your own paycheck, and bearing children right up to menopause.

How can you exist as a woman & not be affected by these issues? What about your sisters, daughters, neices, grandaughters? You don't want these rights for them too???


< other so-called "women's issues" that mean nothing to me. >

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-12-2001
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 6:29pm
You are right. THOSE are the women's issues that matter .... not abortion and not welfare, which is what the left defines as "women's issues" today.

Bev

girl in chair
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 7:43pm


Oh me too!!!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 8:15pm
As as woman, I absolutely agree with most of the issues you put forth. I do take exception to the following:

<<3. The right to receive information about birth control, & the right to use it>>

Birth control isn't a *right*. Unless you have found some obscure blurb in the constitution that says so. And it certainly isn't something the taxpayers should have to foot the bill for.

Women (who like it or not are the bearers of children) are responsible for their own family planning. Government isn't responsible for giving them anything wrt birth control or family planning. As an aside, men shouldn't have the right, via Viagra or any derivitive thereof, to get it up on gov't $$. Not surprised that THAT insurance mandate was under the Clinton Admin.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 8:29pm
The economy is Kerry's strongest issue which is why he should focus on it.

I did the phone banks for Cuomo (NY Governor race) in 1994 and the only reason Pataki won was the economy. Soooo many people in NY were out of jobs and they wanted ANYONE but Cuomo at that point. If Kerry can tap into the millions who are unemployed or underemployed and get them to vote he can win. Forget about Iraq or Vietnam. People truly care about their own circumstances.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 8:38pm
I know that I would like to be able to take birth control some day as a fellow woman. I don't wanna think about starting a family till my later twenties since I'm still in school now and have at least anywhere from 2-4 years left. What if somewhere down the line I meet someone and we want to marry and still both go to school (or work) and we don't want a family but still want to be active together. I'd deserve, I think, the choice to have birth control and then when I'm older too if I don't wanna get my tubes tied. My mother had that done and she goes through a lot of harmone stuff that I might not wanna deal with someday and I don't wanna be fifty something and still popping out babies (even though I love kids and would love to have a big family someday). If you do still want to have kids at age fifty-something then that's cool with me but not everybody would want that and I don't (or wouldn't) want my government telling me I couldn't have that option to stop having kids. Only way you could totally do that without birth control is abstenence and I don't think a married couple should be asked to stay away from sex. Also, I don't know too much about what all birth control can do but can't it also help a woman's menstrual cycle if she's having trouble with it? XOXO.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 8:40pm
I agree. I've seen Bush really focusing on the whole war situation but hasn't said too much about home problems from watching the rep convention unless I just didn't see where he did talk about it. I think if Kerry can also connect with people about home issues people are really worried about then it'd be a good way to go. Even though I do want someone who can protect the States I also want someone who can take care of home and get things back on track. XOXO.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 9:25pm
"

Oh me too!!!!!"

Whereabouts? I grew up near 111th and Kedzie.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 09-02-2004 - 9:36pm
Oh, good grief.

You already have multiple birth control *choices*. What more do you want, a governmental guarantee that you won't get pg until you decide you are ready?