Word: darman
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With that decided, Gephardt placed a phone call to Budget Director Richard Darman, who was still the White House point man in the negotiations, though he and chief of staff John Sununu had both been cast in messenger roles because their aggressive arm bending in support of the budget summit's package had alienated many Republicans and most of the Democrats. Gephardt told Darman that the Democrats would give up the surtax in exchange for a tax-rate increase for the rich and a phaseout of their personal exemptions, along with a 5 cents gas tax hike...
...current crisis is rooted in the anti-democratic conviction that neither political party is supposed to stand for anything. In the quest for what Richard Darman called a "no-fingerprints" budget deal, the Bush Administration and the congressional leadership of both parties carried this flight from democracy to self-destructive extremes. The bipartisan budget summit not only shut out the voters but almost all of Congress from the vital business of setting national priorities at a time of scarcity and economic fear...
Meanwhile, Darman tried a new tack. He revised his capital-gains proposal, suggesting that the rate be lowered from 19.6% to 15% in the hope of spurring a compromise with the Democrats at around 17% or 18%. The Democrats were willing, but only if Bush agreed to eliminate the "bubble," an irregularity in the income tax code that lowers the rate on earnings over $500,000 from 33% to 28%. In fear that Republicans would revolt again, Bush refused to budge on rates. At one point, Sununu discussed adjusting the tax brackets so that the lower rate would apply only...
...Darman kept quiet. It was part of their routine...
...Bush administrations have been submitting fraudulent, free- lunch budgets that promised huge tax cuts, a social "safety net," a "kinder, gentler" nation, improved education, a war on drugs, the greatest military buildup in peacetime history and -- most fraudulent of all -- a balanced budget. Bush's OMB director, Richard Darman, who played a crucial role in negotiating the budget compromise that was at the center of last week's maelstrom, was himself guilty of preparing a budget that was a monument to Reaganite wishful thinking. Bush's nationally televised paean to the homely virtues of a balanced checkbook might have carried...