Media Research Council

| Friday April 6, 2001 (Vol. Six; No. 58) |

Bush Tax Cut Means No Help for Winnie

Winnie is back! Winnie Skinner, the Gore campaign poster oldster for a government entitlement program to cover prescription drugs, whom the networks during the campaign turned into a cause celeb, was resurrected Thursday night by NBC Nightly News. Reporter Jim Avila, who last September championed Skinner’s misleading tale about having to collect cans to pay for her pills, formulated a story so that Skinner and another "older American" could denounce Bush for putting his tax cut ahead of their needs.

Last year, FNC’s John Du Pre discovered: "Fact is, Winifred doesn’t have to collect cans to pay for her medication. Just ask her son, a wealthy Iowa horse rancher and business consultant" who "says his mother collects cans more to assert her independence than to make ends meet." For more details on how FNC unmasked the Skinner sham, go to the October 6, 2000 CyberAlert: http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2000/cyb20001006.html#8

Undeterred by reality, on Thursday night Avila repeated how during the campaign she "went public with a very personal story, picking up cans seven days a week to buy her pills." He also featured John Rother of the AARP, who warned that if tax cuts "are too large then there won’t be enough for prescription drugs." Avila, of course, didn’t bother with any contrary point of view as he let an old woman who pays a piddling $30 a month for a prescription complain about how President Bush only wants to give a "break" to "the wealthy people."

Here, in its entirety, is Jim Avila’s one-sided advocacy piece as aired on the April 5 NBC Nightly News:

Avila: "Winnie Skinner today, still paying $200 a month for the prescription drugs that keep her blood pressure down." Skinner: "We’ll get it changed one of these days. If Bush don’t change it maybe we’ll get somebody that will." Avila: "Discouraged because during the presidential campaign she went public with a very personal story, picking up cans seven days a week to buy her pills, confronting the Vice President [video of Al Gore hugging her] and quickly becoming the living symbol of older American’s number one issue: prescription price relief." Skinner at a September 27, 2000 Gore event: "I just called in for my prescriptions for this month and they’re going to be $200, between $230 and $250." Avila: "Both Gore and Bush responded to Winnie and 39 million other older Americans on Medicare. Candidate Bush promising to make it a priority." George W. Bush, date not listed: "Immediate prescription drug help for all seniors will be my second bill." Avila bore in on what’s blocking implementation of a massive transfer program: "But what has happened since? The tax cut, clearly emerging as the Bush administration’s number one focus, White House sources conceding a comprehensive prescription drug plan is unlikely to be passed this year. Why not? Cost, drug prices rising so fast government estimates from the campaign already outdated. In 2000 the Congressional Budget Office projected a ten year cost of the Bush prescription drug plan of $153 billion. Today, same plan, $200 plus billion -- little room for both a presidential tax cut and a new, expensive program."

But instead of picking up on the inevitable soaring spending as a potential problem, Avila focused on the size of any tax cut as he turned to John Rother of the AARP: "If the bidding war on Capitol Hill results in tax cuts that are too large then there won’t be enough for prescription drugs." Avila found another selfish elderly woman who thinks its her right to force others to pay for her needs: "75-year-old Eve Waldman, paying $30 a month for her blood pressure pills, sees it as a matter of priorities."

$30 a month is some kind of outrageous burden? A mere $1 a day. She pays more than that for cable TV.

Waldman whined: "He’s talked about only the wealthy people who’ve been paying taxes and wants to give them a break."

Imagine that. I bet those undeserving "wealthy people" pay a lot more than $30 a month in income tax.

Avila concluded with a warning shot to Bush: "And, say Eve and Winnie, forcing older Americans to make choices, like which bill to pay and how to vote next time around."

CyberAlert coverage of network fawning over Winnie Skinner last September:

-- ABC, CBS and MSNBC eagerly hyped the Gore issue agenda promoted by an elderly woman at a Gore event who claimed she has to pick up cans along roadsides to pay for her prescriptions. ABC’s Terry Moran enthused about her "poignant" story: "This is the way campaigns are supposed to work. A candidate, a voter and a big issue." MSNBC’s Chip Reid: "Wow, is it resonating." Go to: http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2000/cyb20000928.html#1

-- Picking up on last night’s stories celebrating 79-year-old Winifred Skinner, NBC’s Jim Avila brought to Today "a simple, sweet story, driving home what for seniors is shaping up as a cornerstone issue." And she was "embraced by her country’s Vice President." Go to: http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2000/cyb20000928_extra.html#1

-- ABC’s Good Morning America interviewed Skinner live about her plight. Charles Gibson opened the program: "Outrage over the cost of prescription drugs in America has a new face today. How will the drug companies defend their prices now?" Go to: http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2000/cyb20000928_extra.html#2

-- Last night, MSNBC’s Brian Williams pronounced the "Gore campaign could not have scripted a better moment," but the Des Moines Register reported this morning that "union representatives" prodded Mrs. Skinner to tell her story. Go to: http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2000/cyb20000928_extra.html#3

-- Making it so, Tom Brokaw Thursday night admired how Winnie Skinner’s plight has turned into "more than 15 minutes of fame." Jim Avila insisted: "Her neighbors say her story is totally genuine." She lives in a house, but he claimed that drug companies aren’t doing enough to "take this great grandmother off the streets." And how does she afford a Tommy Hilfiger jacket? Go to: http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2000/cyb20000929.html#1

-- AG's Uncle Murgatroyd (AG's@Good.Kid), April 07, 2001