365 Days (originally aired January 19, 2004)
It is the day after President Bartlet's final State of the Union address, which Toby is not as satisfied with as others might expect. Kate and CJ deal with protests and a hostage situation surrounding the U.S. ambassador's comments about the upcoming Bolivia presidential election (1). Charlie wants to move forward on the earned income tax credit (2) but has a hard time selling it. Leo returns to the White House and urges Bartlet to not let the remaining days of his presidency slip away.
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Bolivia Election (last updated January 19, 2005) (back to top)
The incident in Bolivia is inspired by actual events surrounding Bolivia's presidential election in the summer of 2002, though actual events did not lead to the taking of U.S. hostages.
On June 26, 2002, U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia Manuel Rocha gave a speech in which he warned Bolivians that support for Evo Morales, a Socialist presidential candidate who criticized programs to eradicate coca production, in the then-upcoming elections could endanger U.S. support. Morales at the time was fourth in the polls and then managed to come a close second in the popular round of the country's elections, getting 20.9 percent of the vote.
The Bush administration stood by Rocha's comments, despite critics who said that the United States was improperly involving itself in another country's elections.
"The Ambassador forcefully defended US policy and rebutted the recent incendiary remarks and comments by the presidential candidate," State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker said in a July 10, 2002 press conference (transcript on-line here). "Mr. Morales, just to make sure all the facts are out there, had called for the expulsion of the Drug Enforcement Agency from Bolivia and the closure of the United States Embassy. And the Ambassador's speech, in light of that, we think, was very warranted and clearly laid out our support for the Government of Bolivia's counter-narcotics policy and our belief in seeing a president of Bolivia who is committed to sharing the traditional values that I discussed. And so we're simply stating our belief."
The Bush administration's Latin America policy chief, Otto Reich, reportedly made comments similar to Rocha's in mid-July.
Despite some outrage in Bolivia at the United States' comments, Morales ultimately lost to former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who had won 22.5 percent of the popular vote. The presidency was decided between Morales and Sanchez de Lozada by Bolivia's legislature in July 2002.
Sanchez de Lozada held power for only about 14 months, facing massive protests during his term. After about 80 people died in protests in October 2003, Sanchez de Lozada resigned from office on Oct. 17, 2003. Vice President Carlos Mesa then assumed the presidency.
Bolivia has taken more measures against cocaine cultivation beginning in the late 1990s, including cash incentives to farmers who eradicated voluntarily and the physical uprooting of illegal coca plants. Such measures have reduced cocaine production, though the State Department noted in 2003 (on-line here) that coca cultivation increased in 2002 even though that year Bolivia eradicated about 12,000 hectares of coca in the Chapare region, where there was more than 120,000 hectares of illegal crop cultivation.
Sources: The State Department has background notes on Bolivia on-line here. Juan Forero, U.S. aid foe is in runoff for President of Bolivia, New York Times, July 10, 2002. Larry Rohter, Bolivian leader's ouster seen as warning on U.S. drug policy, New York Times, October 23, 2003.
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Earned Income Tax Credit (last updated January 19, 2005) (back to top)
Charlie wants to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, an antipoverty program that provides about $30 billion in tax credits each year. Created in 1975, the EITC program helps low-income taxpayers reduce the amount of taxes owed and offsets the cost of their Social Security taxes.
The EITC program has been praised often for its assistance to working lower-income people. In 1998, the Clinton administration's Council of Economic Advisers called the EITC "one of our most successful programs for fighting poverty and encouraging work" and reported that the EITC lifted an estimated 4.3 million individuals (including 2.2 million children) out of poverty in 1997.
However, the program has suffered both from eligible people not participating in the program and from people erroneously claiming the credit.
According to a 2001 study by the General Accounting Office, about 25 percent of the 17.2 million eligible households did not participate and thus did not receive about $2.7 billion of credits which they could have claimed. Households with one or two qualifying children had high participation rates around 95 percent, but households without qualifying children had low participation rates around 45 percent. Some have criticized the procedures for claiming the EITC and have called for more awareness efforts to help low-income taxpayers understand the credit.
Perhaps not surprisingly, other studies have found that errors were leading to some taxpayers receiving a larger credit than they should have. An IRS study for tax year 1999 reportedly found that between $8.5 billion and $9.9 billion should not have been paid, and the GAO has also placed the EITC on its list of high-risk programs. In recent years, the IRS has implemented new tests to reduce overclaims resulting from common errors.
Sources: The IRS has information about claiming the EITC on-line here. GAO-02-290R Earned Income Tax Credit Participation (on-line as a PDF here). GAO-05-92 Earned Income Tax Credit: Implementation of three new tests proceeded smoothly, but tests and evaluation plans were not fully documented (on-line as a PDF here).
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By Stephen Lee
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