The industry-funded lobbying group USANext "says it plans to spend as much as $10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing AARP, the powerhouse lobby opposing [Social Security] private investment accounts." To oversee the campaign, USANext hired Chris LaCivita, recently of the 527 group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. USANext is also looking to other Swift Vets advisers, having hired Creative Response Concepts and hoping to hire Rick Reed of the Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm firm. An unnamed USANext official said their pro-privatization campaign "would be so aggressive that the White House might not want to associate with it," especially because the group "is attacking the AARP."

Comptroller general and Government Accountability Office chief David Walker warned federal agencies that, while they "have the right to disseminate information about their policies and activities, agencies may not use appropriated [public] funds to produce or distribute prepackaged news stories intended to be viewed by television audiences that conceal or do not clearly identify ... that the agency was the source of those materials." Video news releases "can be utilized ... so long as there is clear disclosure." In the past two years, the GAO found VNRs from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy to violate the ban on covert government propaganda.