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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (600)	10/12/2001 6:28:50 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

What I meant was that he forgot to include the word terrorists !!!! (LOL)

To: TigerPaw who wrote (600)	10/12/2001 6:30:59 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

The Stimulus Charade From The Washington Post Friday, October 12, 2001; Page A32 THE HOUSE Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to meet today to write a bill to stimulate the lagging economy. The panel's Republicans appear poised to approve over Democratic objections, and possibly expand, the tired list of further tax cuts the president endorsed a week ago. It's the wrong thing to do -- a hijacking of the current crisis, economic and otherwise, in behalf of an agenda that long preceded the crisis and has little to do with easing it. These are tax cuts far more likely to stimulate increased campaign contributions than increased economic activity. The president's main proposal was that Congress accelerate some of the cuts in income tax rates already approved but deferred in the costly bill it passed last spring. But as with most of the other cuts in that bill, these would mainly go to the better-off, who are far less likely than lower-income households to spend the money. They would thus have limited short-term stimulative value. The main effect would be to lock in place tax cuts that Congress would do far better to rescind, since so much of the projected budget surplus meant to pay for them has disappeared. The chairmen and ranking minority members of the House and Senate budget committees declared last week that the cost of "near-term economic stimulus" should be offset over time by a return to fiscal discipline. What better way to accomplish that than by canceling rather than hastening unaffordable tax cuts that have yet to take effect? The president also proposed a one-time-only rebate to lower-income households that pay Social Security but not income taxes. That's a good idea: Those households need the money and will spend it. In addition, Mr. Bush supports two business tax cuts. One -- repeal of the minimum corporate income tax -- would be equivalent to a permanent cut in the corporate income tax. It would add to the government's long-term fiscal problem while providing little short-term gain. The other – faster write-offs of the cost of new plants and equipment -- would work if it were temporary, by inducing companies to speed up spending plans. But some in the business community, on the committee and in the administration want to make it permanent. Some Republicans have said they also want to cut the capital gains tax and corporate income tax directly. It is not clear whether that will happen in this bill. But this markup, if it occurs as planned, will nonetheless be a clear departure from the elaborately bipartisan politics of recent weeks. The president early on in the stimulus discussion suggested he agreed with Democrats that a sizable share of whatever the government put on the table should go to the unemployed and lower-paid. Conservatives in and out of Congress complained, saying the opportunity should be seized to cut taxes instead. They won; the bill likely to emerge from Ways and Means will give their side a stronger bargaining position in negotiations with the Senate. The likely result, if the Senate negotiates with the same lack of vigor it did on the tax bill, will be legislation that does far less short-term good than it otherwise might, and no small degree of long-term harm. © 2001 The Washington Post Company