Propaganda Alert: HHS Requests a 315% Increase in PR Budget
Under the category of “Your tax dollars at work” comes this blog posting from The Hill discussing a proposed 315% increase in the Department of Health and Human Services’ public affairs budget. This request (outlined on page 16 of the HHS budget justification) would nearly DOUBLE the number of propaganda officers…er, employees…working in the public affairs office.
This budget request is just the latest example of Administration officials using hard-earned taxpayer dollars to try and “sell” the health care law to constituents:
Misleading Mailings: Last May, the Administration spent $18 million to send a mailing to seniors purportedly touting the “benefits” of the health care law to seniors. The Government Accountability Office found that the mailer – which was NOT reviewed or approved by the non-partisan Medicare actuary for its accuracy – “overstates some of [the law’s] benefits” and “presents a picture of [the law] that is not universally shared.”
Ads with “Weasel Words”: The Administration also spent millions more in taxpayer funds to run an ad campaign in which Andy Griffith took on the role of “pitching President Barack Obama’s health care law to seniors.” The non-partisan factcheck.org concluded that the ads used “weasel words” to mislead seniors about the impact of the health care law.
Propaganda Postcards: The Internal Revenue Service spent taxpayer funds to mail out 4 million postcards advertising the health care law’s “benefits,” in the form of a scaled-back small business tax credit. Yet the IRS has not shown a similar inclination to send out postcards warning the American people of the more than half-trillion dollars of job-killing tax increases included as part of the law.
At a time when the federal government faces trillion-dollar deficits, many may question whether the federal government has more important priorities than spending millions of dollars engaging in PR messaging regarding Democrats’ unpopular, 2700-page health care law.