Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (412314)	6/6/2003 6:44:36 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 769670

BUSH LIES: "Duped and Betrayed" Let's look at the betrayals involved in this latest tax cut. nytimes.com Duped and Betrayed By PAUL KRUGMAN According to The New Republic, Senator Zell Miller — one of a dwindling band of Democrats who still think they can make deals with the Bush administration and its allies — got shafted in the recent tax bill. He supported the bill in part because it contained his personal contribution: a measure requiring chief executives to take personal responsibility for corporate tax declarations. But when the bill emerged from conference, his measure had been stripped out. Will "moderates" — the people formerly known as "conservatives" — ever learn? Today's "conservatives" — the people formerly known as the "radical right" — don't think of a deal as a deal; they think of it as an opportunity to pull yet another bait and switch. Let's look at the betrayals involved in this latest tax cut. Most media attention has focused on the child tax credit that wasn't. As in 2001, the administration softened the profile of a tax cut mainly aimed at the wealthy by including a credit for families with children. But at the last minute, a change in wording deprived 12 million children of some or all of that tax credit. "There are a lot of things that are more important than that," declared Tom DeLay, the House majority leader. (Maybe he was thinking of the "Hummer deduction," which stayed in the bill: business owners may now deduct up to $100,000 for the cost of a vehicle, as long as it weighs at least 6,000 pounds.) Less attention has been paid to fine print that reveals the supposed rationale for the dividend tax cut as a smoke screen. The problem, we were told, is that profits are taxed twice: once when they are earned, a second time when they are paid out as dividends. But as any tax expert will tell you, the corporate tax law is full of loopholes; many profitable corporations pay little or no taxes. The original Bush plan ensured that dividends from such companies would not get a tax break. But those safeguards vanished from the final bill: dividends will get special treatment regardless of how much tax is paid by the company that issues them. This little change has two big consequences. First, as Glenn Hubbard, the former chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers and the author of the original plan, delicately puts it, "It's hard to get a lot of progressivity at the top." Translation: wealthy individuals who get most of their income from dividends and capital gains will often end up paying lower tax rates than ordinary Americans who work for a living. Second, the tax cut — originally billed as a way to reduce abuses — may well usher in a golden age of tax evasion. We can be sure that lawyers and accountants are already figuring out how to disguise income that should be taxed at a 35 percent rate as dividends that are taxed at only 15 percent. Since there's no need to show that tax was ever paid on profits, tax shelters should be easy to construct. Of course, the big betrayal was George W. Bush's decision to push this tax cut in the first place. There is no longer any doubt that the man who ran as a moderate in the 2000 election is actually a radical who wants to undo much of the Great Society and the New Deal. Look at it this way: as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, this latest tax cut reduces federal revenue as a share of G.D.P. to its lowest level since 1959. That is, federal taxes are now back to what they were in an era when Medicare and Medicaid didn't exist, and Social Security was still a minor expense. How can we maintain these programs, which have become essential to scores of millions of Americans, at today's tax rates? We can't. Grover Norquist, the right-wing ideologue who has become one of the most powerful men in Washington, once declared: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Mr. Bush has made a pretty good start on that plan. Which brings us back to Senator Miller, and all those politicians and pundits who still imagine that there is room for compromise, that they can find some bipartisan middle ground. Mr. Norquist was recently quoted in The Denver Post with the answer to that: "Bipartisanship is another name for date rape."

To: Land Shark who wrote (412314)	6/6/2003 6:55:45 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Respond to of 769670

Yes we know all you can do is find the non error. You again show how you lack the ability to do Transaction Related Analysis In Logic Oriented Reasoning Strategy. (trailors)

To: Land Shark who wrote (412314)	6/6/2003 6:58:09 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

CBS News: "Bush Rides Into Credibility Gulch" To be clear: there is absolutely no question that an Inquisition in Washington is vitally needed. [[RGD comment: We are going to get these dirty bastards.]] The Inquisition hit an important mark of scandal-worthiness -- the Newsweekly Trifecta; Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report all ran detailed features examining the charges of a cover-up in the covert world. cbsnews.com It’s an Inquisition grand enough to sweep up Washington and London, Congress and the Commons: What did the spies really and truly know about Saddam’s unconventional weapons, and when did they know it? Did the secret services on both sides of the pond hype, “sex up” or spin intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to please their hawkish masters and justify a war? Did Teams Blair and Bush cook the books? President Bush faces a Showdown at Credibility Gulch. The summer heat is on. Congress is preparing to investigate and sizzling, high-drama hearings are a distinct possibility. The Inquisition hit an important mark of scandal-worthiness -- the Newsweekly Trifecta; Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report all ran detailed features examining the charges of a cover-up in the covert world. Labor’s Prime Minster Blair has it worse. For starters, has opponents are gutsier. Ian Duncan Smith, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, bluntly said, “The truth is that nobody believes a word now that the prime minister is saying.” That’s a Tory talking about a Laborite who went to war! Two prominent members of Blair’s own cabinet who quit over the war have also accused the government of misleading the country about the justifications for war. To be clear: there is absolutely no question that an Inquisition in Washington is vitally needed. But, there’s a perfectly good chance it will never happen, that the next big story will eclipse and erase today’s furor to find out. Remember, “connect the dots?” That was 9/11 Washington-speak for all the questions about why the FBI and CIA didn’t “connect the dots” of pre-9/11 evidence that pointed to a potential major domestic attack. In the summer of 2002, it looked like there would be Iran-Contra-like “connect the dots” hearings. It fizzled, shunted aside by the build-up to war with Iraq – and 2002 elections, of course. Conducting the Inquisition has its own risks; if WMD-Gate hearings do make the summer schedule, they could easily degenerate into politic theater. Some pitfalls. Inquisitor Hypocrisy. The key charge here is that somewhere in Bushworld evidence about Iraqi WMD’s was fabricated to sell a war to a wary public. Problem: opponents of the war never believed that the WMD issue was Bush’s “real” reason for vanquishing Saddam. There were multiple “real” reasons, according to opponents. Bush the Younger needed to vindicate Bush the Elder by beating his archenemy. Bush needed to teach the Arab and Islamic world a lesson. Bush needed a big win because Osama bin Laden was still on the lam. (And Team Bush, remember, tried to sell several other justifications. Liberating the Iraqi people from tyranny. Making post-Saddam Iraq a model for Arab democracy.) So it would be rather disingenuous of war critics to complain about phony evidence for a phony case. Bush’s Hyperactivity. Since the war “ended” the President has not exactly put his cowboy boots up. He rammed through a substantial and controversial tax cut in the face of swollen wartime spending and enormous deficits. And he actually risked a little political capital on the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire. Bush moves faster than his opponents. Half of them are still fighting the Battle of West Palm Beach. If Congress senses the market for an Inquisition is weak, they’ll pull the plug, period. And Bush is the better marketer, by far. Wrong Questions. “was intelligence manipulated” is just one question, not THE question, and Inquisitions can become preoccupied with find smoking guns proving narrow charges. Charges of slanting intelligence aside, the truth is almost certainly going to be that the CIA did not know the truth about Iraq’s WMD. That itself is a problem. Perhaps not a scandal, but it’s a problem. Just like it’s a problem that the pre-9/11 dots weren’t connected. Or that we don’t know where Osama is. Or Saddam. Or Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Distraction. The Inquisition, while important, is archeological and is not more important than what we do next to rebuild Iraq, contain Islamist terrorism and broker a peace between Israel and Palestine. “Finding Iraq’s WMD’s is necessary to preserve the credibility of the Bush team, the neocons, Tony Blair and the CIA,” Thomas Friedman wrote in The New York Times. “But rebuilding Iraq is necessary to win the war.” Very true. But – huge but – the credibility of the President and the C.I.A. is not exactly chopped liver. This administration, let’s not forget, has embraced a policy of “pre-emptive warfare” – a commitment to strike first if threatened by nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. How will we know when there are such threats? Intelligence. Credibility would come in handy in those situations. This administration is happy to send out guys like Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft to scare us with Code Orange upgrades and instructions to buy duct tape – based on (what else?) intelligence. Credibility would come in handy in those situations. This administration wasn’t able to persuade several major allies to join the war on Iraq. Some credibility would have come in handy. A little summer Inquisition might be just the ticket. Dick Meyer, the Editorial Director of CBSNews.com, is based in Washington. For many years, he was a political and investigative producer for The CBS News Evening News With Dan Rather. E-mail questions, comments, complaints and ideas to Against the Grain