The new prescription drug benefit is off to a catastrophic start. Tens of thousands of older Americans have arrived at pharmacies to discover that their old drug benefits have been canceled, but that they aren’t on the list for the new program. More than two dozen states have taken emergency action.

At first, federal officials were oblivious. “This is going very well,” a Medicare spokesman declared a few days into the disaster. Then officials started making excuses. Some conservatives even insist that the debacle vindicates their ideology: see, government can’t do anything right.

But government works when it’s run by people who take public policy seriously. As Jonathan Cohn points out in The New Republic, when Medicare began 40 years ago, things went remarkably smoothly from the start. But this time the people putting together a new federal program had one foot out the revolving door: this was a drug bill written by and for lobbyists.

…

Mr. Scully had good reasons not to let anything stand in the way of the drug bill. He had received a special ethics waiver from his superiors allowing him to negotiate for future jobs with lobbying and investment firms – firms that had a strong financial stake in the form of the bill – while still in public office. He left public service, if that’s what it was, almost as soon as the bill was passed, and is once again a lobbyist, now for drug companies.

Meanwhile, Representative Billy Tauzin, the bill’s point man on Capitol Hill, quickly left Congress once the bill was passed to become president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the powerful drug industry lobby.

Go read the entire thing over at Eschaton. Krugman wonderfully ties together the threads of this debacle and the political machine that is at the center of the Abramoff and Delay scandals. He concludes with an important question.

So I have a question for my colleagues in the news media: Why isn’t the decision by the White House to stonewall on the largest corruption scandal since Warren Harding considered major news?

“Not only has Rick Santorum accepted more money from lobbyists than any other senator this election cycle, he is also the leader of the notorious K Street Project,” wrote Jay Reiff, Campaign Manager for Casey.

The K Street Project is the nefarious Tom Delay/Jack Abramoff plan to place “their hand picked Republican friends into the very lobbying firms that Santorum is now being asked to regulate. The K Street Project and Santorum’s selection to lead ethics reform are indicative of an arrogance of power in Washington that needs to change.”

Meanwhile, the Casey people have mounted a petition drive against the selection of Santorum.

Rep. Tom DeLay will likely be booked in a Texas county jail this week despite attempts by his attorneys to bypass the fingerprinting and mug shot process.

The former House majority leader was forced to step down from the post last month when he was indicted by a Texas grand jury. DeLay initially was charged with conspiracy to violate the election code and days later was indicted on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to launder money in an alleged illegal scheme to funnel corporate money to Republican Texas legislative candidates.

On a happier note, it looks like Tom DeLay will have options after the 2006 elections. I have talked to my sources and it appears likely that Orkin would consider hiring the former exterminator to handle some of their small-scale infestation jobs.

WELL DONE, TOM!

Under House rules, this means Delay has to step-down as Majority Leader.

Radical Rick Santorum, get off your cell phone, we’re coming for you next baby.

Good work, everyone.

Republicans are scrambling to figure out who will become the majority leader. Again, rumors are that Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) is being considered for the job.

More to come….