For those who have yet to hear about it, check out the news that the new deficit reduction bill passed by the Senate, and due before the House for a last approval, drastically changes the Medicare rules for people on home oxygen therapy.
The Senate bill, S. 1932 requires that Medicare home oxygen patients own their equipment after 36 months of rental, a seemingly simple change that carries with it the consequence that "responsibility and the cost for servicing and maintaining this equipment will fall on the Medicare patient."
Do you think it's just coincidence that as of this morning (1/30/06) the text of this bill was not yet available on Thomas, the web-based Congressional service?
For an administration with a markedly poor record in reforming government agencies, not to mention Medicare prescription drug benefits, the Bush administration remains committed to that "reform" effort. So, amid the news from UPI that FEMA couldn't even be bothered to accept help from a fellow fed agency, Interior, in its horrid response to Hurrican Katrina, we now have attempts to reform the pay system at DoD, the Homeland Security Department's personnel rules, and the mail delivery system at DoD, all chronicled at Federal Times.
This is the House that Jack bought.
Raw Story has a piece on an upcoming Newsweek story on how "Bush appointees revolted over executive branch overreach," with an excerpt beginning:
James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people who came to my office, or my home, or called my cell phone late at night, to quietly tell me when I was about to make a mistake; they were the people committed to getting it right--and to doing the right thing--whatever the price. These people," said Comey, "know who they are. Some of them did pay a price for their commitment to right, but they wouldn't have it any other way."
Yep. 20 years, has it been now? Challenger blasted itself to shards over the Florida cape...
Just a quick note to explain the email policy here at WTW. Please take time to read this, m'kay?
Rick Santorum, now running for his political life, is developing a habit of making public statements that can be easily disproved with rudimentary searching of the public record. For example, he's recently been disclaiming any real connection to Grover Norquist's "K Street Project" to ensure that lobbyists hire Republicans only.
Think Progress tracked down a different set of facts from a 2002 newspaper report.
How do you respond to what many perceive to be a crisis in military manpower? If you're the Bush administration, you propose cutting the size of the Army Reserve to "its lowest level in three decades...."
In his 1-26-06 NY Times column "Dollars & Sense," David Brooks continues his occasional efforts to inform the Democrats about what they're doing wrong. Brooks' advice is free, and worth every penny.
Mr. Insight offers two basic concepts:
"[L]iberals have adopted an overly negative view of reality" which leads them to think that more people are poorer than is really the case. In the course of this analysis, Brooks pooh-poohs the dangers of globalism and outsourcing, and proudly points out one economist's view that "only 19 percent of males and 27 percent of females are poor or working poor."
"There has been a tendency in Democratic circles to regard values as a sideshow that Republicans use to fool the working class into voting against its self-interest," which misses the point that voters "use value issues as stand-ins and figure the candidates they associate with traditional morality are also the ones with sensible economic policies."
Well, there are certainly a few things to be said about that.
I, like so many others, have been following the evolution vs. intelligent design debate rather closely. It is both disheartening and infuriating that this public debate has been full of lies, half-truths, intellectual dishonesty, and logical fallacy.
