Business, RNC lend hand to Bush Social Security Blitz.

[reprehensor]

Business, RNC lend hand to Bush blitz

Aggressive efforts to guide opinion trends on Social Security raise concerns over `information-sharing'

By Mark Silva
Washington Bureau
Published March 14, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The White House, in concert with the Republican National Committee and well-financed business groups, has launched an unprecedented campaign for changes in Social Security, including essays in local newspapers, media interviews and supporters calling in to radio shows to back President Bush.

The drive, which includes mobilization of supporters to attend rallies for the president and town-hall meetings by members of Congress, closely tracks Bush's travels as he crisscrosses the nation on a 60-day tour touting Social Security revisions facing opposition in Congress.

The coordination among the president, Republican Party and privately financed organizations is the latest example of an aggressive, disciplined control of information flowing from the White House, which experts say dwarfs the communications efforts of previous administrations.

Many attribute the administration's successes in no small part to this painstaking control of information. These efforts have ranged from the innovative and aggressive to what the non-partisan Government Accountability Office has called the illegal production of video reports that appear to be the work of journalists.

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The Fix Behind Fixing Social Security

The Bush administration is giving Social Security privatization the hard sell, with campaign-style tactics. But convincing the public to go along with the dismantlement of the program is proving to be an uphill battle.

In late February, deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, National Economics Council director Al Hubbard, and Barry Jackson, a special assistant to the president who is handling Social Security reform, met with administration-friendly lobbyists for a "rah-rah" cheerleading session on Social Security privatization. According to The Hill, representatives from the conservative 60 Plus Association, the business-funded Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security (COMPASS), America’s Community Bankers, the National Retail Federation, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Business Roundtable heard the trio reiterate George W. Bush's commitment to "reform" Social Security. ''Karl Rove talked about its importance to the president's agenda, and Al Hubbard talked about its importance to the economy,'' a spokesperson from the Roundtable told Bloomberg News.

''The White House is running this as if it's a political campaign,'' Free Enterprise Fund president Stephan Moore told Bloomberg. "There are regular meetings the White House has with all the groups to make sure everyone is singing from the same hymnal."

To finance the campaign, business and trade association lobbyists are pressing their corporate members to fill the privatization collection plate. The New York Times' Glen Justice reports that althought "most groups are still raising money, and the spending figures they quote are still often just targets, the lobbying could amount to more than $100 million."

COMPASS, which counts the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the corporate funded USANext as members, just launched its "Generations Together" outreach effort, on which it expects to spend $20 million. The "grass-roots" campaign will try to recruit more than 100,000 volunteers to voice their support for President Bush's Social Security plan at town hall meetings and rallies as well as make phone calls and write letters to members of Congress, demanding action on Social Security.

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