Cato Daily Dispatch for October 18, 2004
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Kerry Attacks Bush on Social SecurityCanadian Pharmacies Refuse Bulk Orders from U.S.
Push for Intelligence Reform Possibly Waning
Kerry Attacks Bush on Social Security
"John F. Kerry accused President Bush of having a secret, second-term plan to privatize Social Security starting in January, telling a church audience Sunday that the idea is 'a disaster for America's middle class,'" the Washington Post reports.
"Kerry based this allegation on a secondhand, unattributed account of a private speech Bush reportedly delivered to Republican supporters in September. 'I am going to come in strong after my swearing in . . . with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security," Bush was quoted as saying in a Sunday New York Times Magazine article that was highly critical of the president."
In "Kerry's Social Security Plan," Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds writes: "While Mr. Kerry may not want to cut benefits for those who 'rely on' or 'need' Social Security, he has flirted with cutting benefits for everyone else -- namely, prudent seniors who plan to rely primarily on other pensions, individual retirement accounts, 401(k) plans and personal savings, as well as industrious seniors who keep working and paying the Social Security tax."
Canadian Pharmacies Refuse Bulk Orders from U.S.
"More than 30 Canadian internet pharmacies have decided not to accept bulk orders of prescription drugs from U.S. states and municipalities. The move delivers a potentially serious setback to U.S. politicians -most notably Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry -campaigning to give Americans easier access to cheap drugs from Canada," the Financial Times reports.
"Kerry has argued that opening the U.S. to Canadian imports could help lower the costs of prescription drugs for elderly Americans. Such reimportation has become one of the points of difference between him and President George W. Bush during the election campaign."
In "Drug Reimportation: The Free Market Solution," Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs, writes: "Americans end up paying for most of the costs of drug R&D while the rest of the world rides free -- and that is politically unsustainable, as events are demonstrating. The current [reimportation] ban should be lifted, therefore, not to encourage reimportation, but to allow the incentives to surface that will 'force' wider use of market practices and the international trade regimes that reflect such practices."
Push for Intelligence Reform Possibly Waning
"The energy that for weeks was pushing Congress toward reforming the nation's intelligence agencies has wavered, leading to worries among advocates of change that their efforts may stall," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
"Those wanting change contend that the best chance is to get legislation to the president for his signature before Election Day -- taking advantage of the momentum gained during recent weeks of hearings as well as public and political pressure."
In "Intelligence Services Are Not 'Intelligent,'" Leon Hadar, research fellow in foreign policy studies, writes: "Even under the best of circumstances in which the CIA is able to recruit the best and the brightest, it will never be able to predict the outcomes of global political and economic phenomena. If anything, as the case of Iraq's alleged WMD demonstrates, the monopoly over information and political authority that the intelligence agency has could end up distorting the free flow of information and ideas. And that will make it less likely that the public and the government will arrive at decisions that reflect the interests and values of a majority of Americans."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org