Oh the power (and abuse) of incumency

The Wall Street Journal, not exactly a liberal rag, discovered that "The [US] Treasury tapped civil servants to calculate the cost of Sen. John Kerry's tax plan and then posted the analysis on the Treasury Web site."

Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury tax official appointed by Reagan, said that using the analysis of the Kerry plan for political purposes "stepped over the line" that's supposed to protect career officials from political influence. "This type of release tends to reduce the reputation of the department as a fair and neutral arbiter of what constitutes good tax policy," Mr. Steuerle said.

Dan Maffei, a Democratic spokesman for the House Ways and Means committee, called the effort "highly suspicious." If the Tresury's investigation had "a legitimate legislative purpose, the first place you would go would be the Joint Committee on Taxation." Just watch, soon you will see ads by Bush that will say that Kerry's tax plan is "a tax increase of as much as $477 billion over 10 years on hardworking individuals and married couples." (The RNC has already used such figures in press releases).

The President already gets half-off all his political travel, and the security tab gets picked up by deficit-ridden cities and states. How? Well he just gives a policy speech on his way to the next fundraiser or rally. In fact, I often have trouble telling the difference between a campaign rally and a policy speech (both are equally staged).

This is not to say he is the first to do it, Clinton did as well, but never to this extent. Bush has raised $170 Million, and he would have much less cash on hand if these trips would be covered by his campaign. How about this: get the President and his lackeys out of the business of doing opposition research for his campaign, get the American people and the localities out of the business of picking up half of a campaign's tab. This would apply to both parties. No more Budget estimates by self-interested White House officials at OMB.

Make the Fed do all estimates of economic impact of budgets, tax plans etc. That way, no one can play political games with numbers. As Benjamin Disraeli and Mark Twain once said, "There's lies, damn lies, and statistics."