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August 21, 2007
Tuesday Afternoon
1. Bush's 2004 victory & mortality salience theory: fearmongering explained.
2. Speaking of Bush: why does he hate children? Yes, the Bush administration is taking action to make sure that states cannot expand the federally funded State Children's Health Insurance Program:
The Bush administration, engaged in a battle with Congress over whether a popular children's health insurance program should be expanded, has announced new policies that will make it harder for states to insure all but the lowest-income children... The administrative move, announced while lawmakers are out of town during the August recess, comes after the White House has wrangled with Congress for months over the future of the $5 billion-a-year program.
The Senate and the House have passed legislation that would dramatically increase funding and make it possible to sign up millions of new children for coverage. But President Bush wants to keep the program largely unchanged and has promised to veto either bill, saying they would inappropriately increase the federal role in health care.
Just disgusting. As Melissa McEwan puts it: "[I]t's more important for these corporate fuck-junkies to prove that the government can't do anything better than "the market" than to save kids' lives. Culture of life, my big fat ass."
UPDATE: Here's an excerpt from John Edwards' usefully clear statement:
In a stunning late-evening order, the Bush Administration made it abundantly clear that the health and welfare of uninsured children is of little concern to President Bush. The Bush order continues an ideological crusade against the SCHIP that will only benefit private insurance companies, while further punishing countless numbers of uninsured families in America. Sadly, this is a new low -- even for this president.
The practical effect of this order is clear: States like New Hampshire, Missouri and Minnesota will have to take away insurance from tens of thousands of children from moderate-income families. Roughly 20 states will be forced to impose a 12-month waiting period before any children without health insurance can enroll. That's a death sentence for uninsured kids with leukemia and other diseases -- chemotherapy isn't available in the emergency room. Apparently 18,000 Americans already dying each year because they don't have health insurance just isn't enough for the Bush Administration.
3. Relatedly: As the public grows increasingly concerned about the safety of Chinese imports, McClatchy Newspapers' Washington Bureau is reporting today on the Bush administration's repeated efforts to thwart more vigorous inspection of the lead content of children's products. I know this is a big block of text, but fuck it:
The Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts, consumer advocates say. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children's products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach.
"The overall philosophy is regulations are bad and they are too large a cost for industry, and the market will take care of it," said Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at OMBWatch, a government watchdog group formed in 1983. "That's been the philosophy of the Bush administration."
Today, more than 80 percent of all U.S. toys are now made in China and few of them get inspected.
"We've been complaining about this issue, warning it is going to happen, and it is disappointing that it has happened," said Tom Neltner, a co-chairman of the Sierra Club's national toxics committee.
The recent toy recalls - along with the presence of lead in vinyl baby bibs and children's jewelry - are prompting the Bush administration to take a deeper look at the safety of toys and other imported products.
President Bush has asked the Department of Health and Human Services to report in September on ways to better ensure safe imports. He's also asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to consider responses to lead paint threats to children.
But as recently as last December, the Sierra Club sued the Bush administration after the Environmental Protection Agency rebuffed a petition to require health and safety studies for companies that use lead in children's products. The EPA and Sierra Club settled out of court in April, with the administration agreeing to write a letter to the CPSC that expressed concern about insufficient quality control on products containing lead.
The Sierra Club's interest in lead paint in children's products grew out of the largest-ever CPSC-conducted recall. That action on July 8, 2004, targeted 150 million pieces of Chinese-made children's jewelry sold in vending machines across the United States. Since 2003, the commission has conducted about 40 recalls of children's jewelry because of high levels of lead.
In March 2006, a 4-year-old Minnesota boy died of lead poisoning after swallowing a metal charm that came with Reebok shoes. The charm was found to contain more than 90 percent lead.
From 1994 until 2001, Ann Brown headed the CPSC under Presidents Clinton and Bush. She didn't push for an outright ban on lead in all children's products, partly because China's rise to export prowess hadn't yet unfolded.
"Today, I would say there should be an outright ban in any lead in any toy product," she said in a telephone interview. "If I were at CPSC now, I'd say that trying to recall (tainted products) is like picking sand out of the beach - it's just not possible."
Before leaving her post, Brown unsuccessfully pushed for pre-market testing of children's products. The idea largely died when the Bush administration took over, said Brown, who's working with Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The CPSC has only 100 field inspectors to police problems with all products sold to more than 301 million Americans. None of the inspectors are stationed in China or anywhere else abroad.
When you "let the market sort it out" - as Republicans constantly urge - you get disastrous health consequences. How many 4 year olds have to die or suffer permanent brain damage before "the market" is thoroughly discredited as a self-regulating force in this instance? When it comes to the safety of American kids, doesn't the government have a proactive duty to protect our children? Guess Bush doesn't think so.
If I was a Democratic candidate for President, I'd be all over this one - and relatedly, Ezra Klein examines the politics of the problem over here, pointing out both "the connection between the ideological commitments of modern-day conservatism and the inevitable degradation of public infrastructure and regulatory standards" and the fact that Democrats are far too quiet when it comes to the all-important political business of making this connection explicit.
Posted by caps at August 21, 2007 02:20 PM