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.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Fri, 09-03-2004 - 9:05pm
"Margaret Sanger was an advocate of eugenics."

As is the Republican candidate for congress in Tennessee.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=547684

Republican candidate admits supporting eugenics

By Amber McDowell in Nashville, Tennessee

04 August 2004


The Republican congressional candidate James L Hart has acknowledged that he is an unapologetic supporter of eugenics, the fake science that resulted in thousands of people being sterilised in an attempt to purify the white race.

He believes the country will look "like one big Detroit" - which has a large African-American population - if it doesn't eliminate welfare payments and immigration. He believes that if blacks were integrated centuries ago, the automobile would never have been invented.

Mr Hart has been said to turn up at voters' homes wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a gun, telling them that "white children deserve the same rights as everyone else".

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: 07-12-2001
Fri, 09-03-2004 - 9:13pm
"I believe people have a responsibility to plan their families according to their circumstances, so that every child is wanted & provided for. Surely you agree?"

I would agree with that (not that you asked me personally). But I don't believe that abortion-as-birth-control should be part of anyone's "family planning" endeavors.

Bev

girl in chair
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Fri, 09-03-2004 - 11:24pm
It's OK to respond to me, I'm not trying to talk only to one person.

I don't think anyone advocates "abortion-as-birth-control" in a stand alone approach to family planning. I think most women want other methods to work, but no method is 100% effective. People who are pro choice just think abortion should be available as a last resort alternative.

I am amazed by the numbers of men who are openly opposed to abortion, often in a very angry way. I happen to believe that if the men who fathered unplanned babies were more supportive, there would be fewer abortions, but I never hear anyone advocating that.


< I would agree with that (not that you asked me personally). But I don't believe that abortion-as-birth-control should be part of anyone's "family planning" endeavors. >

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 12:10am
By The Way, too...

From your article...

"In the Bush recession year of 2002, the poverty rate was lower than in the Clinton "prosperity" year of 1998."

According to this source, http://www.nber.org/cycles.html, there was no recession in 2002. The recession is pegged at March to November of 2001, (which is also not during Clinton's term as the Bush Leaugers are now trying to claim). Note too that it started almost 6 months before 9/11.

You might also note that 8 of the 10 post-World War II recessions took place under Republicans.

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: 04-16-2004
Sun, 09-05-2004 - 2:57pm
The reason that Kerry keeps bringing up Vietnam is because he doesnt want people to truly scrutinize his record as a Senator. He is afraid that the voters will actually see why he is consistantly ranked as either the most liberal or second most liberal elected official in Washington DC.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Sun, 09-05-2004 - 2:58pm
I loved watching the Bears stomp on the Patriots.

All I kept hearing was how great the Pats were and Raymond Berry, and how he was going to out-coach Mike Ditka....what a hoot.

Pages