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

To: rich4eagle who wrote (1885)	1/9/2002 12:08:01 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Domestic issues tax Bush again Matthew Engel in Washington Tuesday January 8, 2002 The Guardian President Bush returned to the White House yesterday from his Christmas break, having already set the tone for a potentially a very different political year with one of his most quotable remarks - one for which no speechwriter is ever likely to claim credit. The country's grammarians started quietly chuckling when they learned that the president had told an informal meeting of voters in California: "Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes." This was not merely a splendid return to the Bush family tradition of mangled syntax but, once translated, also offered a hostage to fortune analogous to his father's famously disastrous campaign pledge: "Read my lips: No new taxes." News from the war front has almost dried up during the president's 12-day absence, spent at his Texas ranch apart from his quick weekend speaking trip to the west coast. This enabled his most visible political opponent, the Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, to seize the initiative last week with a speech blaming the president's tax cuts for the widening budget deficit. Mr Daschle insisted that he favoured "the right kind of tax cuts" ie, helping working people rather than the rich and aimed specifically at regenerating the economy. The sudden change in the political weather was illustrated by Mr Bush's first scheduled meetings being with his economic advisers and then the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, rather than any of the defence, diplomatic and anti-terrorism specialists who have had first call on his time for the past four months. The turn of the year has suddenly focused Washington's attention on the US's relentless and immutable political calendar. Primaries will begin soon for the midterm elections in November, when almost everything except the presidency will be up for grabs. The Democrats hold the Senate by one seat and need just six to get control of the House of Representatives. A third of the 100 Senate seats will be contested this year, all the house seats, and most state governorships. The results will be immensely important in setting the tone for the second half of Mr Bush's term. Should there be another attack on the US or a dramatic expansion of the US's offensive ambitions, then the focus will change again instantly. But Mr Daschle has skilfully separated domestic issues from his support for the president in the war and there is no certainty that global issues will be more than marginally more important than the thousands of local ones that have to be resolved before 2002 is over. If the Democrats hold on to the Senate it could be the decisive impetus for Mr Daschle's unstated but increasingly presumed presidential ambitions. guardian.co.uk