Word: congressmen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...MUCH NEW SPENDING Poll after poll before and after the speech showed that Americans would accept higher taxes to cut the deficit. But the willingness comes with the condition that government sacrifice too, by giving up the high- calorie programs that help Congressmen get re-elected, the agencies that keep bureaucrats employed, the pet programs that have marinated in think tanks during the Democrats' years in the wilderness. "If he increases taxes simply to spend more money," says James Nowlan, president of the Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois, "then public cynicism will only increase...
SPENDING CUTS The White House is in something of a bind. Tax increases can be made, or made to appear, equitable by spreading them over enough people. Spending cuts tend to target particular people -- worse, constituents of particular Congressmen, often Democrats who have won re-election by boasting that they kept in the budget spending programs that benefit their district. On the other hand, some Republicans who are scarcely enthralled by tax increases might buy them as the price for reducing the size of government. "If he does what he promises, he's going to get a lot of bipartisan...
This tax would pit Northern oil users against Southern producers and has already stirred a cat fight within the energy industry. Nineteen Congressmen from New England, which depends more heavily on imported oil for electricity and home heating than any other region, last week sent Bentsen a letter opposing an import fee. Complains William Whall, a blind Korean War veteran who lives in New Hampshire: "I just converted to oil heat, and now Clinton wants to whack me with an oil-import fee. I can't stand it. It seems like you get taxed if you do and taxed...
Investigators initially suspected that Congressmen were buying stamps with office-expense vouchers, then trading them in for cash. Now it seems that the thousands of 29 cents stamps may never have physically changed hands at all; Rostenkowski's campaign may have written checks for postage and, instead of getting stamps, received cash from cooperative employees at the House post office. A source close to the investigation frames the central question in these terms: "Did they bring checks and, instead of buying stamps, get money and then take that money...
Here, in fiction, and in less than a minute, the gridlock that has paralyzed Washington is neatly exposed: Congressmen don't have to chase money with their votes; there's so much around they can cop all they want no matter what their stance on a specific issue. "It's not that bad things happen, although they sometimes do," says Marty Kaplan, The Distinguished Gentleman's screenwriter. "It's that good things don't happen. The real story is that Washington is frozen, and a lot of people are making a killing keeping it that way." Kaplan knows the territory...