Word: cuttingly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...vote last Thursday was not even close. The decision came on a Democratic alternative to the capital-gains cut that would have made tax- deductible IRAs available to more people, balanced by a tax increase on earners of the highest incomes. That proposal lost, 239 to 190. Bush bagged 64 Democrats, while only one Republican, Douglas Bereuter of Nebraska, voted for the alternative...
What happened? To House Speaker Thomas Foley, the answer was simple: Americans love a tax cut -- any kind of tax cut -- and the legislators reflected that feeling. Democrats contended, correctly, that 80% of the benefits from the capital-gains slash would go to people making more than $100,000 a year, 60% to those with incomes over $200,000. No matter, says Foley. Tell an ordinary taxpayer that he will reap $10 from a measure that will save the likes of Donald Trump an average of $25,000 a year, and the taxpayer will reply, "Fine. Give...
There were other reasons too. Bush undoubtedly swung some votes by last- minute lobbying. Many Congressmen bought the Administration argument that a tax cut would spur business investment, creating more jobs and prosperity for everybody. In theory the lure of a lightly taxed payoff will tempt investors to put up money for risky ventures. Economists have long disputed whether that is true, but it remains an article of faith among conservatives...
Prospects for reversing that outlook in the Senate are dim. Finance Committee chairman Lloyd Bentsen will try to stop the capital-gains cut by offering as an alternative broader IRAs, without any tax increase to make up the revenue loss. Failing that, some Democrats favor strategy to combine the capital-gains cut in a monster tax-and-spending bill with so many provisions unacceptable to Bush that he will be forced to veto it. That risks triggering the automatic spending cuts mandated by Gramm-Rudman-Hollings if there is no agreement by Oct. 16 to hold the deficit...
...waiting to see whether the President will make the tough choices necessary to establish education as a genuine priority. Some wonder, for example, why he retains the so far ineffectual Lauro Cavazos as Education Secretary. They also wonder why a self-proclaimed education President would propose, in effect, to cut federal education spending $400 million, adjusted for inflation...