ARA Charge Ads Nothing But Political Propaganda

The Alliance for Retired Americans today called on the Republican National Committee to reimburse American taxpayers the more than $12 million of public money used by the Bush administration to finance a media campaign that promotes the new Medicare prescription drug law, charging the advertisements are blatantly political and don't provide a public service. The print and broadcast campaign was launched by the White House in response to growing criticism about the politically volatile Medicare drug benefit.

"The president and Karl Rove know they created a prescription drug law that seniors simply don't accept," said Alliance Executive Director Ed Coyle, whose nationwide grassroots organization represents more than 3 million seniors and campaigned against passage of the Medicare bill, " so the White House decided to fight back using tax dollars to fund a partisan propaganda campaign."

"This misinformation campaign amounts to nothing more than an in-kind political contribution by the Department of Health and Human Services to the Committee to re-elect President Bush and should be paid for with campaign money and not with hard-earned taxpayer dollars. This campaign is a public disservice and shouldn't be construed as helping educate seniors.

"The Republican National Committee owes American taxpayers $12.6 million."

Coyle said fatal flaws in the new Medicare law, coupled with political repercussions associated with a growing senior backlash, pressured the Bush administration into refuting criticism of a law that's not even scheduled to go into effect until 2006. The money the administration used to finance the ad campaign and expensive media buys was supposed to be used to implement the new law," he added.

"This administration has an obsession with unfairly cutting taxes, but it doesn't hesitate to spend public money on political commercials masquerading as public service ads," Coyle said. "Seniors deserve more and they know it all too well."