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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (27952)	1/27/2003 4:32:56 AM
From: marek_wojna	Respond to of 74559

Maurice, you are facing conflict of interest now. Which one you'll put now on the higher altar? Bush or Greenspan? You cannot serve two gods, IMO Jay is right on the subject calling you to save save yourself and your soul. << THE BUSH ECONOMIC PLAN BUSH ECONOMIC PLAN See full coverage of the president's economic package and its reception on Capitol Hill and beyond. Plus, extensive coverage of what the plan could mean for individual investors, at Tax-Free Returns. advertisement Dividend-Tax Cut Plan Draws More Fire From Friends, Foes Daschle Calls Plan 'Dead On Arrival'; Greenspan Plays Down Economic Effect By SHAILAGH MURRAY Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- Opposition to President Bush's dividend-tax cut intensified on Capitol Hill, as Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle declared it "dead on arrival" and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan played down its short-term stimulative effect on the economy. Speaking privately to a group of senators Thursday, Mr. Greenspan said the U.S. economy is recovering without additional fiscal stimulus. In any case, he said Mr. Bush's proposed $670 billion of tax cuts would provide the economy with little near-term effect, according to people familiar with the meeting, which was set up by Sen. John Breaux (D., La.) to hear Mr. Greenspan's views on the economy and government fiscal policy. Members of the bipartisan group said they concluded from the session that the central-bank chairman wants Congress to pass a much smaller stimulus package, or none at all. Mr. Daschle didn't attend Thursday's meeting. But one senior Democratic aide said Mr. Greenspan's comments, relayed to the South Dakotan by other senators, were a factor in his dismissal of the tax cut Sunday. "The stock-dividend approach is dead on arrival," Mr. Daschle told the CBS program "Face the Nation." He said "adequate support" had built "in opposition to the president's plan -- both on the Republican and Democratic side" -- to assure that it won't survive in its current form. Eliminating taxes on stock dividends is the centerpiece of an economic plan that Mr. Bush will pitch Tuesday night in his State of the Union address. He defended the tax cut during his Saturday radio address, saying it would "lay the foundation for future prosperity by encouraging investment and helping Americans to prepare for the new jobs a growing economy will bring." Asked whether he thought the dividends proposal was dead, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), the second-ranking Senate Republican, responded with a lukewarm, "I don't think so." Speaking on the NBC news program "Meet the Press" Sunday, Mr. McConnell called the president's stimulus package "an overall effort to reinvigorate the stock market and to get the economy growing again. Clearly, the president is asking the Congress to act, and act, I believe, we will." If the dividends proposal does survive, indications now are that it is likely to be scaled back. Republican legislative aides are trying to gauge market effects of various changes to the plan. They also are examining possible ripple effects within the corporate-tax code, along with how much revenue a dividend-tax cut could cost state and local governments selling tax-exempt bonds that would be disadvantaged by Mr. Bush's proposal. On initial examination, they said, cutting taxes paid on corporate dividends by just 50% appears to relieve much of the negative impact on municipal bonds created by full repeal, aides said. Meanwhile, Republican skepticism of the dividend cut appears to be growing. "Surely you could come up with a better stimulus than that," said Sen. Pete Domenici (R., N.M.). Many House and Senate Republicans would prefer to shorten depreciation schedules to stir business investment. Democrats and Republicans both support a bigger write-off for small businesses through an expensing increase. Another bipartisan priority is altering the alternative minimum tax -- a flat tax that kicks in once deductions reach a certain level -- before it ensnares millions of middle-class taxpayers. In a speech Friday to the City Club in Cleveland, Mr. Daschle proposed a one-year, $141 billion stimulus plan that would provide a $300 rebate to all working adults, provide cash-strapped states with $40 billion of fiscal relief and give small-businesses a 50% tax credit to help them maintain employee health plans. The Democratic leader called the dividend-tax cut the Bush package's "biggest flaw."

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (27952)	1/27/2003 8:50:08 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 74559

Hi Maurice, It's interesting that you'd respond with a simplistic laundry list of consumer preferences to well argued essays about the moral issue of our age. 1) Ditched Kyoto CO2 nonsense You are in an ever-shrinking minority of flat-earth types on this one. There is no credible science behind your assertion. Only ideologues using statistical tricks remain in the denial camp. 2) Canceling dividend tax You mean "proposed" to cancel dividend tax. Which made a nice headline for simpletons to swallow. When the mechanics of the actual implementation of this tax change were explicated, the proposal fell apart like a house of cards. Some wags see the cost of implementation of this insanely tortuous manipulation of the tax code to be greater than the savings to nation's shareholders. Since shareholders who own dividend paying stocks in 401(k)s or other pension schemes get absolutely no benefit from the proposed dividend tax abatement, there is a very narrow segment of the population who could possibly be rewarded by this change. Not to mention, this was "sold" to the world as a stimulus scheme. Which is preposterous because all the benefit goes to the richest segment of the society who will by and large save the tax rather than spend it and create demand. 3) Cutting other taxes It is mind bogglingly blind not to realize that the infrastructure of civil society will be destroyed by indiscriminate tax cuts. 4) Executes murdering criminals The problem with cowboy justice, as it is practiced in the United States is that it is racially discriminatory and has been categorically been proven to be used as a political tools for ambitious prosecutors who see no problem with lying in their efforts to further their careers, falsely prosecuting innocent victims of a system that is now merely a legalistic morass and in no way to be described as a system of justice. 5) Attacked Taleban And let them slip through our fingers. Most infamously in the Kunduz episode, where Bush's team cynically forced the USAF to stand down and allow hundreds if not thousand of al Qaeda and Talib fighters to be airlifted to Pakistan. Where they resurfaced as an irritant in the Kashmir and as salesmen for the arms merchant who used the increased border tensions to sell weapons systems in Islamabad and New Delhi. 6) Organizing Afghanistan The U.S. puppet, Hamid Karzai, can't trust an Afghani bodyguard to keep him alive through breakfast, so he uses a U.S. Marine contingent. The U.S. military is bogged down in garrisons such as Bagram and can't travel in country except with massive shows of force. 90% of Afghanistan is controlled by vicious warlords who are profitting handsomely from the U.S. approved 1,000% increase in opium poppy production since Taliban days. Citizens from Russia all the way to the U.S. East Coast are suffering the increased curse of drug related crime due to the U.S.'s wink-and-nod policies. 7) Steel tariffs okay [if hypocritical of the USA] How about, if utterly hypocritical and destructive of the U.S.'s place within the WTO trade framework? 8) Reappoints and affirms Uncle Al KBE as being great Greenspan is 74. He's getting very long in the tooth. His pronouncements within the past year about "productivity gains" based on phony hedonic accounting indicates that he's a dangerous loose cannon. Similarly, his unwillingness to reign in dangerous financial derivatives games because of pressure applied by his owners (the broker-dealers) is a terribly risk to take for the sake of greed of a small elite. 9) Gives the UN a rev up - more to come I hope Granted, the UN is problematic. However, it's infinitely superior to a unilateralist bully-boy cowboy U.S. going it alone. 10) Prosecuting the Canadian killers Prosecuting is one thing. Convicting is another matter. Let's see how the U.S. tries to wiggle out of responsibility on this one. Remember that when we had a couple of asshole fighter jocks take out a ski gondola in Italy, the U.S. cavalierly exonerated the criminals, but eventually paid off about $23 Million to the victims. *************************************** Re: Can't think of stuff I dislike offhand. The USA is doing what I want How much do you get paid to spout this nonsense? <g> Salaams, Ray