Word: gephardts
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House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt is a defender of Joe Six-Pack, who would have been stung by a Republican proposal to raise the excise tax on beer to 32 cents a pack. But Gephardt has another reason to be one of the boys: Anheuser- Busch Co. headquarters are in his St. Louis district. Gephardt bellied up to the task of holding the beer tax to 16 cents per six-pack. He has received $12,850 from beer industry PACs...
...higher taxes for the rich when they saw a gloomy Bush on television Tuesday night, suffering through a New England campaign swing during which G.O.P. candidates distanced themselves from his positions. The next day, top congressional Democrats arrived for their daily 8 a.m. meeting in majority leader Richard Gephardt's office. All agreed that pushing for another victory over the President would be counterproductive. "We didn't win everything, but we got most of what we wanted," says Congressman Charles Schumer of New York, who had been among the group that most strongly urged for a steeply progressive tax plan...
...compromise that could be achieved. But as soon as the plan was presented, the Administration, House Speaker Tom Foley and minority leader Robert Michel promptly found themselves absorbing fire from left, right and center. The plan's Medicare component immediately became one paradigm of the scheme's vulnerabilities. Loreen Gephardt, 81, mother of the House majority leader, seemed to speak for the 33 million other Medicare recipients when she urged her son to leave Medicare alone. "I would rather he wouldn't touch Medicare, because we were already paying pretty much and not getting what we ((received)) before," she said...
...Thursday night debate approached, it briefly appeared that the wooing by Foley and Gephardt would pay off. Ways and Means chairman Dan Rostenkowski, whose committee writes tax legislation, pledged his support with the understanding that he would be able to tighten the proposed investment loophole. It appeared that some Democrats would even be willing to vote for the package in the absence of a Republican majority. Predictions seeped out of the Speaker's office that supporters would probably prevail by the narrowest of margins. If the nose counters could not forecast the critical number -- 218 -- they would delay the showdown...
Scrambling to control the damage, Administration officials tried to mask that miscalculation by claiming that the Democrats had reneged on the bargain. But Gephardt told Bush at a White House meeting Tuesday that not only had there never been a deal but that Darman had not presented a full proposal either. As Panetta said later, "We did not pledge that every time the Republicans slit their wrists we would slit ours...