washingtonpost.com
Contempt for Congress
Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A30
TENSION BETWEEN THE executive and legislative branches is inevitable, but the Bush administration has tended to treat Congress with an arrogance bordering on contempt. The latest illustration involves the report that the Medicare chief actuary was threatened with firing if he gave lawmakers his analysis of the likely costs of the new prescription drug legislation. The actuary, Richard S. Foster, estimated that the new entitlement would cost far more than predicted by the Congressional Budget Office: $534 billion over the next decade rather than the CBO's $395 billion.
Whose analysis (if either) is right is not the point. Rather than straightforwardly acknowledging the difference and having an honest discussion about which analysis was more accurate, the administration preferred to stifle dissent and muscle the measure through Congress. Indeed, had the administration been more forthcoming, the bill probably would have failed: The House managed to pass it only after leaders delayed gaveling the vote to a close in order to engage in last-minute arm-twisting.
When the administration finally was forced to acknowledge its far-higher estimate in January, officials acted surprised at the new price tag. "This is really the first time that we've come up with a full and precise cost estimate because we were going through our budget processes," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Hogwash. Yes, the measure was still evolving. But Mr. Foster's analyses showed as early as last spring that the cost of the benefit was likely to be between $500 billion and $600 billion -- and the White House now admits that officials were well aware of the higher estimates.
Now administration officials would like to pin all the blame on Thomas A. Scully, who then headed the agency that oversees Medicare and who says he was only joking when he threatened to fire Mr. Foster. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, in announcing Tuesday that the department's inspector general would investigate the matter, portrayed Mr. Scully as a rogue agent. "I called Tom . . . to remind him those threats were not appropriate," said HHS Chief of Staff Scott Whitaker. Yet Mr. Foster believed Mr. Scully was not the only one who wanted the information kept from lawmakers. "More than once, Tom said he was just following orders," he told The Post's Amy Goldstein. What orders there may have been, and from whom, will be for the inspector general to determine. How much to trust the administration in future legislative battles will be up to lawmakers.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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