The Benefits of Incumbency

From the Center for American Progress

Just two days after the White House proposed serious budget cuts and the President said he's "calling upon Congress to be wise with the taxpayer's money," the Bush Administration announced a massive taxpayer-funded television ad campaign to promote its controversial Medicare bill. Specifically, the White House will use $9.5 million from the Department of Health and Human Services – money that is supposed to be used to implement the law and could go to restore some of the cuts to social services for the poor – on political commercials that "rebut criticism of the new Medicare law."

Via Atrios

Looks like a projected 200 million dollar campaign war chest isn't enough for Mr. Bush. I has to STEAL MONEY FROM POOR PEOPLE, too.

Hey, with fake indignation like that, I bet I could be a talk radio host.

It is still pretty lame that tax dollars are being used for political purposes. Then again, Bush's whole domestic policy agenda is using tax dollars for political purposes.

A skilled Democrat running a populist campaign might be able to exploit this ad buy rather easily. He could rail about wasting the people's money and how Washington and the Bush administration don't care about the average American. It might make the ad buy very counterproductive.