Word: darman
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...when congressional leaders and the Bush Administration began putting together a deal. The President's goal was to keep his read-my-lips campaign promise of "no new taxes." Congressional leaders wanted to appear to meet deficit-reduction targets without cutting any politically popular spending programs. Budget director Richard Darman came up with a solution that was simple -- too simple. A cut in the capital-gains tax would at least temporarily raise money to cover the revenue shortfall. Many Democrats at first supported the plan that looked like all gain, no pain...
Around Labor Day, however, the consensus that Darman had put together began to fall apart. "Everything was going along swimmingly," explains an Administration official, "until the drug plan came out of nowhere, and then capital gains became partisan instead of the easy way out." The battle against drugs meant new spending, and Democrats began attacking a capital- gains cut as a Republican tax goody for the rich and famous...
...fact, when it comes to economic policy, the Administration appears to care little about deficit reduction. The White House seems to care only about keeping Bush's no-new-taxes pledge. Administration officials like to point to Darman's optimistic economic assumptions and deficit predictions as well as the relatively good business climate. Bush has not uttered a word about the budget deficit in weeks...
House Speaker Thomas Foley privately proposed dropping the hundreds of extraneous spending programs -- and the capital-gains cut -- from the budget- busting bill. But Darman turned down the offer, thinking he could get the kind of trimmed-down budget he preferred as well as the capital-gains cut. When it became clear the Administration would be charged with favoring capital gains over budget cutting, Darman relented. But by then it was too late to stop sequestration from taking effect...
...This isn't being approached on that basis. Everybody appreciates that it is a national disaster and that we've got to address it. We're trying to do it as best we can on the merits on a bipartisan basis," Darman said...