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Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (11386)	11/26/2007 2:54:21 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25737

Gee, Shorty...did you actually write that? (hint: no link to true author of partisan publication)

To: longnshort who wrote (11386)	11/26/2007 10:33:20 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 25737

Hastert Resigns Tonight blog.washingtonpost.com After months of playing coy about when he would depart, Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) bid his official farewell to the House today. The speaker for eight years, Hastert wrote letters to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) officially resigning his congressional seat in a move that has long been anticipated but with the timing in question because of internal Illinois politics about when to hold a special election to pick a successor. In a bit of historical coincidence, Hastert's resignation, taking effect at 11:59 pm EST tonight, comes on the same day that Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) announced his plan to resign later next month from the Senate. For four years in the late 1990s and earlier this decade, Hastert and Lott served together as the top Republicans in Congress, legislative point men for the early days of President Bush's tenure. Hastert gave his farewell address to the House before the chamber broke for the Thanksgiving recess, but held off on specifying his departure. In his letter to Blagojevich, Hastert said he chose today because it allows the governor "sufficient time" to schedule a primary election for Feb. 5 to select Republican and Democratic nominees to compete in a special election later next spring. Illinois Republicans have been wary of an earlier Hastert resignation and holding the special general election on Feb. 5 for fear that the presence of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on the ballot in the presidential primary would bring Democrats out in droves to the polls, potentially threatening what otherwise would be a safe Republican seat. In his letter to Pelosi, Hastert thanked her for the "courtesies" she has shown him during his unusually long goodbye to the chamber. While most ousted speakers retire shortly after giving up the gavel, Hastert has remained a back-bench member all year. By Paul Kane \| November 26, 2007; 8:58 PM ET

To: longnshort who wrote (11386)	11/26/2007 10:34:27 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

Thompson Calls for Option of a Simplified Income Tax November 26, 2007 By MARC SANTORA nytimes.com Fred D. Thompson recommended yesterday that people have the option to pay a simplified tax on their income. The proposal was part of Mr. Thompson’s plan to overhaul the nation’s tax code. Mr. Thompson, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, would allow individuals and families to stay with the existing tax structure or to choose to have their earnings taxed under a system with only two rates — 10 percent on income of up to $100,000 for joint filers and $50,000 for singles, and 25 percent on income above these amounts. The proposal has been advocated by, among others, the Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus in the House of Representatives. An analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which looked into the kind of plan Mr. Thompson proposed, found that the federal government would stand to lose at least $2.5 trillion in revenue over 10 years. But Mr. Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, said in an interview yesterday on “Fox News Sunday” that such studies “always overestimate the losses to the government” and that tax cuts would spur the economy, leading eventually to greater revenues. Mr. Thompson’s proposal is the most specific yet among the leading Republican candidates in support of a flat tax. Rudolph W. Giuliani, for one, had assailed the flat tax while he was mayor of New York but recently spoke in favor of it without endorsing a specific plan. In detailing his plan, Mr. Thompson joined other leading Republicans in calling for making permanent the tax cuts instituted during the Bush administration and repealing the estate tax. He also called for reducing the corporate tax rate to 27 percent from 35 percent. Additionally, Mr. Thompson favors abolishing the alternative minimum tax, which was created to make sure that the wealthiest Americans did not use loopholes and deductions to avoid paying their share of taxes. While many Democrats and Republicans agree on the need to revise the structure of the tax since it has increasingly been hitting upper-middle-income families, scrapping it would cost the government billions of dollars in revenue. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company