Word: packwoods
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...last week what couldn't be done cleared its last major hurdle. In a series of tense meetings that began Tuesday night and wound up shortly before 5 a.m. Saturday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood and House Ways and Means Chief Dan Rostenkowski compromised on the last significant differences between the versions passed by the House last December and the Senate in June. Then came a day of nerve-jangling negotiations selling the deal to the other 20 members of the House-Senate conference committee (ten from each chamber). Finally the full committee gave its stamp of approval Saturday...
...presented to the other side. The House gave in early to the Senate's two tax rates. That left the biggest question: How large should the increase in business taxes be? After a supposedly climactic session last Tuesday turned into a shouting match, the weary conferees agreed to let Packwood and Rostenkowski try to break the impasse. The two met on and off--at times with a few aides, at times alone--well into the night. By Thursday evening, according to Packwood, they were within two hours of a deal that would cut individual taxes and raise business levies...
With so much at stake, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood and House Ways and Means Committee Chief Dan Rostenkowski, who will probably be cochairmen of the conference, are mulling unconventional ways of choosing other conferees. Normally, the most senior members of the Senate and House committees would be selected, but Democrat Rostenkowski is considering appointing his closest allies, senior or junior. Republican Packwood, in contrast, talks of bringing along all 20 Senators on the Finance Committee to face as few as eight Representatives. That would not pack the conference, however, since all decisions have to be approved...
...bills. Examples: both would entirely remove from the tax rolls some 6 million people below or just above the poverty line, and both would revive the so-called marriage penalty by ending the special deduction for families with two wage earners. Another good omen for the conference is that Packwood and Rostenkowski, who have had some testy exchanges in the past, are now talking friendly compromise. Says the Chicago Congressman: "The challenge is to take the best reforms from each" bill. Echoes the Oregon Senator: "Neither one of us will have pride of authorship." But the differences between...
Bradley deserves credit for being "the idea man," says Oklahoma Democrat David Boren, a Finance Committee member. But credit for patching together the votes to pass a tax-reform bill goes to Packwood and to his House counterpart, Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. Behind the scenes, Bradley bitterly resisted an amendment aimed at preserving tax breaks for oil and gas that was necessary to win the support of Finance Committee members from the South and West. "Bradley wanted to bulldoze the bill right through without any ; amendments," says an oil-state Senator. "Packwood understood the need...