Stop the Medicare Ad Blitz, Taxpayer Group Says
By: Administrative Account | Source: CNSNews.com
February 6, 2004 10:13AM EST
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
February 06, 2004
(CNSNews.com) - A group representing the interests of taxpayers is upset about the Bush administration's new ad campaign touting the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
The $12.6-million ad campaign is a "political and fiscal insult to taxpayers," said the National Taxpayers Union on Friday.
"Forcing Americans to pay millions for hyping a program that eventually will cost them trillions is truly a two-handed slap at taxpayers," said NTU President John Berthoud in a press release.
Berthoud questioned why the administration would spend $9.5 million for television ads and $3.1 million for print, radio, and Internet ads promoting a program that won't even take effect until 2006.
"It has all the timing of an election-year ploy rather than a genuine public service announcement," Berthoud said.
In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, Berthoud urged the Bush administration to "immediately terminate" its "Same Medicare/More Benefits" ad campaign.
"Even when there is no election agenda, NTU and fiscal conservatives across the country deplore taxpayer-funded advertising promoting big government," Berthoud told Thompson.
"The outrage is compounded by your Department's recent embarrassing admissions that the prescription drug program will cost far more [35 percent more] than what was promised to the American public last fall," he added.
The NTU, along with 45 other citizen groups, urged Congress to reject the Medicare prescription drug proposal late last year.
"Our broad coalition repeatedly warned wavering Members of Congress that [higher costs] would be the case," Berthoud told Thompson, but elected officials failed to heed the warning.
The least the administration can do now, Berthoud added, is shut down the ad campaign, which he called an "anti-taxpayer propaganda mill."
The NTU describes itself as a citizen group that works for lower taxes, less wasteful spending, and accountable government.
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