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******************************************* Taxes & Drugs This is a special issue of News & Views because we've limited the blurbs to just two BIG issues. First, our good friend Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform has garnered a lot of ink lately. His take-no-prisoners style when it comes to the issue of cutting taxes as a way of reining in government spending is exactly the right way to go and the Left is scared to death of him. This is an important - nay, critical - issue for our side in the coming weeks, months and years ahead. While conservatives have certainly made some headway in recent years with back-to-back tax cuts, we still suck lemons when it comes to spending restraint. We need to get our house (and senate) in order. The other issue is drug reimportation, a matter that likely will come to the floor of the House sometime this week. While I can appreciate the sentiment out there among some readers that this is a "free trade" issue, you'll find in this issue that a significant number of highly-respected conservative leaders and bona fide free traders dismiss that contention completely, including Mr. Norquist. And then there's the safety issue. While we all want to see the price of prescription drugs come down in the U.S., this decidedly is NOT the way to do it at this time. Two BIG issues covered like nowhere else in one free little newsletter? The government schools should be this good. ******************************************* Goin' Postal This Week on "Always Right" Unbeknownst to most Americans, earlier this year President Bush established a presidential commission to study the need for various reforms to our postal system, especially in light of the growing use of email as well as the fact that, despite rate increase after rate increase, the post office still loses money hand over fist. The commission will release its formal recommendations on July 31st. To discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of the USPS, our guest on "Always Right" this week will be Rick Merritt of PostalWatch.org. Tune in Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. EST (or catch the re-run at 11:00 p.m. EST) for "Always Right with Chuck Muth." The link to listen in is... http://www.theotherradionetwork.com/srv1.asx You can catch previous interviews on "Always Right" by visiting our archives at: http://www.theotherradionetwork.com/pgs/archives-fr.htm **************************************** Bipartisanship "Bipartisanship is another name for date rape." - Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform **************************************** It's the Spending, Stupid "Sixty-eight percent of the widening of the deficit in fiscal year 2003 to date is the result of spending. Annual spending increases from 2000 to 2003 more than TRIPLES the amount of annual spending increases from 1992 to 2000. The average American must now work 87 days in 2003 to pay for federal spending, an increase of 10 days compared to 2000. The number of individual pork projects has increased 48 percent over the past two years." - Americans for Tax Reform ***************************************** Splish, Splash, Give Gov't a Bath "My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." - Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform **************************************** Better Feared Than Loved "(O)ne of the leading strategists behind (President) Bush's secret war on government is more than happy to tell the world all about it. His name is Grover Norquist, and he is the nation's leading advocate of 'kill the taxes and you kill the government.' If pre-emption is the most dangerous idea any president has had since Richard Nixon, Norquist may well be the most dangerous adviser. . . . More and more, the administration seems to be thinking about taxes just like Norquist - tax cuts are ALWAYS good, because they take money from government." - Ed Kilgore, policy director for the Democrat Leadership Council ***************************************** Starving the Beast "(P)rivately, another rationale is often cited by conservatives as the genuine motive for serial tax cuts, regardless of the fiscal and economic condition of the country: Tax cuts are good in themselves because they will ultimately force a shrinkage of government - without the pain or controversy of identifying specific cuts in popular government programs. "...This rationale - once referred to a 'starving the beast' by Reagan Budget Director David Stockman - is obviously one that most Republicans are a bit reluctant to articulate, representing as it does a kind of gutless Gingrichism. "But (Americans for Tax Reform President Grover) Norquist has no problem at all talking about it at length. And he has no moral compunctions about failing to identify which domestic programs to cut, because he pretty much hates them all." - Ed Kilgore, policy director for the Democrat Leadership Council ***************************************** The Challenge Ahead "The center-right coalition, the taxpayer movement, the conservative movement has won the (tax) argument in Washington. We're not raising taxes. President Bush has gone beyond that, to not only not raising taxes, we're going to cut taxes every year. There is now another challenge in front of us as activists, and that is to create the conditions that make it possible for elected officials to say, not only 'no' to tax increases, but (also) 'no ' to the spending interests." - Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, CNSNews.com, 7/11/03 ************************************ 4.75 cents-per-minute Long Distance * All state-to-state calls in the continental U.S. * Residential or commercial * 6-second billing increments * 24 hours/day * 7 days/week * No access codes * No minimums * No activation fees * Calling Card Rate is 10 cents per minute * No monthly service charge unless your bill is less than $20.00 a month (then a $1.99 service charge will apply) * No need to change your local phone company * No hassles * Easy sign-up. * And a small portion of each bill goes to help continue publishing our FREE Chuck Muth's News & Views e-newsletter. Just go to: <http://www.NewsandViewsLongDistance.com> today. **************************************** That Which You Subsidize You Get More Of "Hey Chuck: One of the major reasons for the humongous costs of medical care is the misuse of health plans by employees. The ink hardly dries on a health care plan for a place of business before the employees start to abuse the privilege. The minute anyone has a fart crossways they head for the doctor, and usually during working hour instead of after work. "...If workplaces would simply take the money they are paying for their share of health plans and give it to the workers and tell them they are now responsible for the plan costs, including any future cost hikes, I believe you would see a lot less misuse of the health care system. Having had knee surgery and shoulder surgery within the last four years, the doctors wife/receptionist told me that she found it rather remarkable how much more quickly us self employed types recovered from our surgeries and went back to work compared to their patients on workers comp or disability!" - News & Views reader Don Lehman of Lowville, N.Y. **************************************** More About Those High Drug Prices "But (prescription drug) prices are too high, claim myopic, vote-seeking politicians like Sen. Jim Jeffords Vermont Independent. Heck, they only save lives. Extend our lifespans. Moderate our pain. Control our nausea. Eliminate our need for surgery. Treat our allergies. "Why should we have to pay for such products? The OUTRAGE. The horror. Drugs should be free. Or at least a lot cheaper. "It would be nice if they were, of course, but people who believe prices can be lowered legislatively are living in the world as it ought to be. Everyone ought to be rich and beautiful. Everyone out to be paid a million dollars a year for working ten hours a week. Everyone ought to have a Mercedes at a Yugo price. Everyone ought to have a mansion for the price of a shack. And everyone ought to have all of the pharmaceuticals now available, but for less money. Life as it ought to be." - Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute **************************************** Manna from Heaven "Unfortunately, pharmaceuticals do not appear outside company doors every morning like manna from heaven appeared in the Promised Land for the ancient Israelites. Instead, firms review numerous plausible substances: of every 5,000 to 10,000 checked, 250 make it to animal testing. About five reach human trials. Only one gets past the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) onto the market. That one has to pay for the research costs of the other 5,000 to 10,000. It ain't easy. "Thus, the real cost of pharmaceuticals is not making the pill that patients swallow. It's the research that went into developing the pill - as well as the other 9,999 substances that never made it to the market. The pill's price also has to cover the cost of running the company and complying with burdensome FDA requirements." - Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute **************************************** Where the Big Cheese Stands on Reimportation "President Bush came out against a plan to make it easier for consumers to get cheaper drugs from other countries, in an advisory sent to Congress yesterday. . . . Bush condemned the plan as too dangerous. 'This (drug reimportation) provision could result in unsafe, unapproved or counterfeit drugs being imported into the United States,' he said." - BostonHerald.com, 7/15/03 **************************************** Importing Death in a Bottle "Hark back to 1982 when some lunatic(s) scared all America and nearly brought Johnson & Johnson to its knees with the 'Tylenol scare.' It resulted in improved packaging safety, but only after seven innocent people died who simply sought a bromide for their headache or sore back. Potassium chloride in the hands of lunatics today would be just as deadly as it was then. "The world is full of bad people. We're scarred with horrible memories every time we hear words like Unabomber, Oklahoma City, 9-11 and anthrax. Accordingly, the 60 Plus Association strongly opposes any amendment or bill that would allow the reimportation of prescription drugs. While we seek to work within the system (and within our borders) to lower drug prices, we want to assure safe markets with medicines neither adulterated nor denigrated by those who might intend us harm. We don't need body bags stuffed with innocent civilians of any age to convince us of this point. Why invite the tragedy?" - Jim Martin, president, 60-Plus Association, The Hill, 7/16/03 **************************************** Is It Safe? "The current ban on (prescription drug) reimportation was passed for a reason: SAFETY. . . . The threats posed by reimported pharmaceuticals continue to exist. . . . Unsafe, counterfeit drugs have been problems in other parts of the world for some time now. . . . The last thing this Congress should do is import into the United States the problems faced by other countries." - "Dear Colleague" letter sent by Reps. Billy Tauzin, Michael Bilirakis, Fred Upton, Jim Greenwood, Steve Buyer, Mike Ferguson and Mike Rogers ***************************************** Don't Forget the Blood-Sucking Lawyers "This (prescription drug reimportation) policy is sold as a way to lower the drug prices paid by Americans. Not only will reimportation fail to accomplish this oft-stated goal, it will jeopardize the quality of pharmaceutical products in our domestic marketplace. "...One also cannot discount the massive potential for trial lawyers lining up at the trough as an increasing number of adulterated, sub-potent, and outright fake pills begin to show up regularly in our medicine cabinets and cause serious harm to patients. Lawyers will not sue foreign middlemen or governments. They will sue U.S. pharmaceutical companies claiming they are to blame for their products being transshipped all over the world in less than ideal conditions." - Duane Parde, executive director, American Legislative Exchange Council, 7/14/03 ***************************************** The Price Control Trap "(Prescription drug) importation advocates don't worry about safety because they think the mere threat of importation will push down prices in the United States by at least 30 percent, according to a recent op-ed by Rep. (Dan) Burton. They think this is competition and free trade at work. The fact that a group of Canadian or European bureaucrats would be setting drug prices for the entire U.S. economy seems to delude them. "...Congress should dismiss all possibility of these scenarios by rejecting the drug importation legislation. It should not fall into the trap of thinking that as long as controls over U.S. prices were introduced by the government of a foreign country, we would still have a free market. We wouldn't have a free market, and we wouldn't get the benefits of one." - John Calfee of the American Enterprise Institute, Weekly Standard, 7/21/03 ***************************************** False Pro-Trade Argument "Some people have made the claim that allowing for the importation of medicines from Canada and all around the world, as proposed by H.R. 2427, the Pharmaceutical Market Access Act of 2003, is advancing trade liberalization and is a pro-trade position. This notion is simply false. "...Every country authorized to import drugs under H.R. 2427 uses trade-distorting and anti-market regulations to control the prices of pharmaceuticals. Increasing cross-border flows under those conditions would further undermine market-based commerce, which is the opposite of free trade. . . . H.R. 2427 is not about free trade. Its advocates are asking us to import price controls and global budgets other governments have imposed on drug spending." - "Dear Colleague" letter from Reps. David Dreier, Pete Sessions, Michael Burgess and Jim McCrery, 7/10/03 ***************************************** No Level Playing Field "Some congressional advocates of drug reimportation argue that it is a 'free trade' issue. They say this because it would allow individuals to purchase their prescription drugs at the best available price. However, one of the fundamental tenets of free trade is that there is a level playing field and a free market upon which suppliers of goods and services are able to compete. Prescription drugs priced in Canada clearly are not based on fair market value; they do not reflect an equilibrium price between supply and demand. Therefore, the proposed policy does not create a truly competitive and level market for pharmaceuticals." - Nina Owcharenko of the conservative Heritage Foundation **************************************** Bad Medicine "The Gutknecht-Emerson (prescription drug) reimportation bill looks good in the short term, but in the long term, is a terrible piece of legislation that unfortunately will prove hazardous to the health of senior citizens. There are two issues involved - safety and price controls. "On the issue of safety, President Clinton's Donna Shalala and President Bush's Tommy Thompson agree: both oppose reimportation based primarily on the lack of safety. "On the issue of price controls, if Gutknecht-Emerson prevails, lights will start going out in the research labs all across the country and senior citizens will be deprived of many potential medical breakthroughs." - Jim Martin, president, 60-Plus Association ****************************************** Affordable Campaign Websites! Now you can get professional-looking campaign web sites for as little as $10 a month. That's right...just ten smackeroos a month. Here's what's included in this fantastic new program from Campaign Secrets, Inc. (available ONLY to Republican candidates): * Free Hosting * Unique Domain Name * Personal Email Accounts * Credit Card Processing * Unlimited Edits * Event Calendar * Volunteer Sign-up Page * Built-in Bulk Emailer Campaign Site Builder can be used for political organizations and non-profits, as well. For more information, just go to: http://www.campaignsecrets.com/websites.asp *********************************** How to Subscribe If you know someone who might like to receive News & Views, you can sign 'em up at: http://www.chuckmuth.com. Also, occasionally, the automatic listserve we use will "bump" subscribers off the list if your mailbox is full or experiences some other technical glitch. If you suddenly stop receiving News & Views, the first thing you should do is try to re-subscribe using the link above. Published by Citizen Outreach Chuck Muth Editor/Publisher 611 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, #439 Washington, DC 20003-4303 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Citizen Outreach is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public policy organization and does not endorse candidates or lobby for specific legislation. 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