More Bush priorities

In Bush America, there’s always plenty of money for advertising and PR. But when it comes to helping the people who are dying because they helped the U.S.A. win the Cold War, well, you know the rest...

Report: Bush Spent $1.4 Billion on ‘Spin’

The Bush administration spent $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with advertising agencies over the past two-and-a-half years, according to a Government Accountability Office report released by House Democrats Monday. With spending on public relations and other media included, federal agencies spent $1.6 billion on what some Democrats called “spin”...

...Trends in spending on PR and ad contracts were not documented, but a prior study by the minority staff of the Government Reform Committee found that spending on public relations contracts rose rapidly under the Bush administration. That report found that spending on contracts with public relations firms had increased to $88 million in 2004 from $39 million in 2000, an increase of 128%.”

White House Eyes Atomic Illness Cost Cap

The Bush administration is taking steps to limit costs associated with a benefits program for Cold War-era nuclear workers who developed cancer from radiation exposure, according to a White House document...

...the working group will discuss whether "administration clearance" should be required before groups of workers are deemed eligible for compensation, the document said. Under the program, created by Congress five years ago, workers get $150,000 plus future medical benefits... To get the special status granting them automatic compensation, workers must have radiation-related cancer and must have worked at a facility with poor records. Once granted the special status, they would not have to go through a lengthy process in which officials try to estimate how much radiation workers were exposed to.

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., decried attempts to alter the program, saying, "Any effort by Department of Labor bureaucrats to limit these benefits would be a true injustice to these workers, their families and their memory."