White House Week
More Rain On the Social Security Parade
As President Bush went back on tour last week to promote his overhaul of Social Security, there were new signs that his plan is in trouble. Robert Pozen, a mutual fund executive who had influenced the president's proposal to trim benefits, told Treasury Department officials that Bush needed to drop his insistence on private retirement accounts. Pozen's advice, sources say, was based partly on his observation that private accounts were a poison pill that would only hurt chances of fixing the system, and partly on his belief that the accounts would reduce revenue for the system. White House insiders say Bush remains wedded to the idea of private accounts, which play to elements of his conservative base. He is still not willing to budge on the issue, telling aides he doesn't want to negotiate with himself. What he is willing to do, aides say, is wait to see what reform bills are produced by the House and the Senate, then move ahead from there.
Now, From North Korea, Knockoff Viagra
As North Korea pushes forward with its increasingly worrisome nuclear program, the Bush administration is moving to squeeze the regime by cracking down on its far-flung criminal trade, which brings it millions in desperately needed hard currency. Pyongyang has responded by diversifying its key rackets--trafficking in drugs and counterfeit greenbacks--to bogus cigarettes and pharmaceutical products, analysts say. Among the sham North Korean products seized recently: cases of Marlboros and a knockoff version of Viagra (aka Neo Viagra Youth Restoration)--said also to work for hepatitis, obesity, and pain. The regime's state-sponsored racketeering generates as much as $700 million in profits annually--equal to nearly two thirds of its legitimate exports, according to the Congressional Research Service. Seizures of counterfeit U.S. dollars alone have totaled $45 million since 1989, notes CRS's Raphael Perl. "The regime has become increasingly criminalized," he says, "and they always seem to be one step ahead of us."
Filibuster Fallout? Fuhgeddaboudit!
Yes, the great filibuster fight will probably come down to the wire this week, but White House insiders say President Bush will be insulated from any political fallout. His job-approval ratings have remained pretty steady at about 50 percent, says Matthew Dowd, a top adviser to the Republican National Committee and a senior strategist for Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. Bush has been tending to side with Senate Republicans who want to nuke the filibuster. But he emphasizes that Senate leaders are calling the shots on this issue, not him.
But on the Other Hand...
Senior Republican strategists are increasingly concerned that the bitter fight over the filibuster will further erode public support for Congress--where the GOP holds a majority in both houses. "If this goes on too much longer, it will have a volatile effect on the midterms," a top White House adviser told U.S. News, referring to next year's midterm elections. Americans care about the economy, gas prices, and healthcare, and they may become frustrated with a GOP-led Congress obsessed by partisan bickering.
With Kenneth T. Walsh and David E. Kaplan Kenneth T. Walsh and David E. Kaplan Kenneth T. Walsh and David E. Kaplan Kenneth T. Walsh and David E. Kaplan
This story appears in the May 30, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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