Word: btu
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Once the bazaar was open, the professionals rushed in. In April Jasinowski's group got together with the American Petroleum Institute, 1,600 large companies, small businesses and farmers to form the American Energy Alliance (AEA), a group designed solely to defeat the BTU tax. The coalition paid more than $1 million to Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm, to deploy nearly 45 staff members in 23 states during the past two months. Burson's goal was to drum up as much grass-roots outrage about the BTU tax as possible and direct it at the swing Democrats...
Like a death in the Old West, the demise of the BTU tax came fast and cheap. Burson's operatives drafted anti-BTU editorials and sent them to copy-hungry weekly newspapers. They helped school boards figure their estimated annual energy taxes. They commissioned local economists to produce studies about potential job loss and then organized rallies and press conferences to publicize the results. They bombarded TV and radio stations with feeds from local business owners angry about the BTU tax. "It was unlike anything I've ever seen," said Brent Stanghelle, farm-news director of radio station KMON...
Clinton's cave-in may cost him other allies as well, since those who supported him on the BTU tax were feeling duped. Moderate House Democrats who voted for the tax in late May only to watch the President abandon it without a fight last week, were beginning to liken themselves to Charlie Brown and Clinton to Lucy with the football. "I remember the President telling us specifically that if we went out on a limb over the BTU tax," said Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York, "he would be there with us. But now we don't even know...
...reform. Because the President had planned to use the Medicare cuts to help pay for health-care reforms later this summer, Clinton's aides are now debating whether to curtail the scope of the reforms or postpone them until next year, or both. "Just look what happened to the BTU tax," said one official. "When you've got something that entails controversy and hard choices, why put it out there and let it sit there and get pummeled?" At a dinner late last week, Clinton insisted he wanted to unveil the plan this year, but he added, "We just have...
...preserve his leverage for the joint House-Senate conference committee later this summer. It is there, they noted, that the final tax bill will be written; everything until then is mere prelude. Within hours White House officials picked up on the theme. "There's no special magic in the BTU," said a senior official. "What's important is the final product...