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Cato Daily Dispatch for November 24, 2003

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Report: Expensive Bargaining for Votes
Pentagon Considers Dedicated Peacekeeping Force
Senate Poised to Approve Medicare Overhaul

Report: Expensive Bargaining for Votes

"As Congress rushes to conclude its 2003 session, Republican leaders are trying to garner votes for controversial legislation by loading the bills with billions of dollars in added costs that analysts said would expand the budget deficit for years to come. The year-end binge has alarmed analysts in Washington and on Wall Street, coming as it does after three years of presidential and congressional initiatives that have both substantially boosted government spending and shrunk its tax base," The Washington Post reports.

"In the final days of the congressional session, GOP leaders added billions of dollars to energy and Medicare bills to help persuade key factions to support the legislation. Overall, the energy bill would cost $33 billion and the Medicare bill $400 billion."

In "GOP Should Give Spending Cuts a Chance," Cato's Veronique de Rugy and Tad DeHaven write: "Almost 10 years after the GOP swept into Congress, it is evident that the self-proclaimed party of limited government has become the party of unlimited spending. The GOP Congress has delivered three of the top five largest spending sprees in American history--the other two occurred during World War II."

Pentagon Considers Dedicated Peacekeeping Force

"The Pentagon has begun to look seriously at creating military forces that would be dedicated to peacekeeping and reconstruction after future conflicts," The Washington Post reports.

"The idea is to forge deployable brigades or whole divisions out of units of engineers, military police, civil affairs officers and other specialists critical to postwar operations."

In "Peacekeeping Lite in Afghanistan," Director of Defense Policy Studies Charles V. Peņa argues that in the case of Afghanistan, peacekeeping operations may generate more harm than good.

"Training Afghan soldiers is the first step towards full-fledged peacekeeping and nation building. Taking that first step may be like getting 'a little bit pregnant'--the responsibility of peacekeeping and nation building may be inevitable and unavoidable (especially if the newly trained army is unable to prevail against the regional militias). As a result, U.S. forces are likely to be drawn into Afghanistan's internal power struggles (exactly what the United States seeks to avoid by not committing troops to the international peacekeeping efforts), thus creating incentives and targets for terrorism."

Senate Poised to Approve Medicare Overhaul

"The Republican-led Senate seems headed toward giving final congressional approval to one of the biggest overhauls of the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly," Reuters reports.

"Republicans said they were confident they had the votes to smash through a Democratic procedural roadblock on Monday, clearing the way for passage of legislation to implement the changes, including creation of a prescription drug benefit."

In a statement released last week, Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies, wrote: "Any attempt to actually reform Medicare has been stripped out of this bill or so watered down as to be unrecognizable. Proposals to give seniors more choices and add elements of market-based competition to the program have been reduced to a tiny pilot project that doesn't even start until 2010. Even highly touted proposals for Health Savings Accounts have been weakened with restrictions and limitations that will severely limit the number of people who can take advantage of them."

Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org