Social Security Deception Funded with Tax Payers' Dollars

Social Security Deception Funded with Tax Payers' Dollars: "January 18, 2005 by CommonDreams.org | Distributed to newspapers by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services | by Mark Weisbrot

Using taxpayers' dollars and government employees to deceive the public is generally prohibited, but lately this seems to have become standard operating procedure. The latest outrage is the Bush Administration's conscription of federal employees at the Social Security Administration in its effort to convince the public that Social Security is in 'crisis.'

This comes on the heels of a scandal involving the Department of Education payment of $240,000 of taxpayers' money to commentator Armstrong Williams to promote the Administration's 'No Child Left Behind' education agenda.

Last September the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that Tom Scully, former head of Medicare in the Bush Administration, broke the law when he threatened to fire Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster. Mr. Foster had wanted to disclose the agency's new estimate of the Medicare prescription drug bill, but backed off when Scully threatened to fire him. At the time, the Bush administration was telling Congress it would cost no more than $400 billion, but Medicare's actuaries had put the cost at $500-$600 billion, which was later accepted as more accurate.

The Bush Administration also used taxpayers' money to sell its Medicare prescription drug bill. It all adds up to a disturbing pattern of deception and abuse of federal offices and funds to advance a partisan political agenda. ...