Printable Version
December 11, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
New Report Looks at $7 Million Bush
Administration “Whitewash” on Seniors
Conference
On the first
anniversary of the 2005 White House Conference
on Aging, the Alliance for Retired Americans
today released a sharply-worded rebuttal to a
Bush administration summary of the conference
which grossly misrepresented the views of the
delegates on issues such as Medicare and Social
Security.
The new report, available here, outlines the politicization and mismanagement of the decennial conference charged with developing policy recommendations for the President and Congress. The Alliance report chronicles the Administration’s efforts to misuse the conference to advance its political agenda.
At a cost to taxpayers of $7 million, the Administration ran the conference in a way that squelched meaningful debate, used flawed voting processes to distort the views of delegates, and relegated many important policy recommendations to hard-to-find appendices of the report. President Bush became the first sitting president to choose not to attend a White House aging conference.
Today’s report was prompted by the Bush administration’s dramatic failure to accurately reflect the conference proceedings. For example, nowhere is it mentioned that a vast majority of the delegates opposed the Bush plan to privatize Social Security. Similarly, the delegates’ support for major changes to Medicare Part D completely disappeared. The strongest delegate support was for comprehensive drug coverage under Medicare with the government negotiating lower drug prices. However, this was bundled together with several other recommendations in the report.
“In the face of such
political pressure, delegates to this
conference made some strong and substantive
points. The Bush administration should listen
to, not silence, dissenting views. We call
upon the new Congress to take a critical look
at this White House whitewash and develop a
comprehensive agenda to improve the health and
well-being of older Americans,” said Edward
F. Coyle, the Alliance’s Executive
Director.
Contact: Amy
Buffenbarger 202-637-5178