Word: payes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...catastrophic-health-care program, which lobbying groups for the elderly hailed at its passage, imposed an annual surtax of up to $800 on well-heeled Medicare beneficiaries, who balked at having to pay for benefits that were often duplicated by their private insurance. Last summer they began an intense, well-organized campaign for repeal, even though it could mean eliminating the entire program and leaving millions of needy seniors uncovered. The House voted overwhelmingly to do just that on Oct. 4, but the Senate, while inclined to eliminate the surtax, is trying to keep some parts of the program...
Such high jinks are symptomatic of much broader problems that have both caused and accelerated the emasculation of Government. Washington has been at a political impasse since Reagan's first term, when Congress -- Republicans as well as Democrats -- refused to let him gut popular domestic programs to pay for his huge tax cuts. Instead, the Government decided to have it both ways: tax reduction as well as big boosts in defense spending and increasing middle- class entitlements (notably Social Security and farm supports), offset to a small degree by cuts in programs for the poor. The resulting deficit spending...
...long-term goals, beyond hoping for a "kinder, gentler" nation, have been lost in a miasma of public relations stunts. The President's recent "education summit" with the nation's Governors produced some interesting ideas about national standards but little about how to pay the costs of helping public schools meet them. His much trumpeted war against drugs was more an underfinanced skirmish. Bush told voters last year that he is an environmentalist, but the most significant clean-air proposals put forth this year -- stringent new standards on automobile emissions -- were adapted from California's strict limits for the 1990s...
...highway system and toxic-waste removal. But Maloof, a Democrat, is even more upset at his own inability to repair his county's sewers and pipelines. "It's all a residue of Ronald Reagan," Maloof says."He did more than most by telling us you don't have to pay taxes even though you still have needs...
...Government, including Democratic congressional leaders, have failed so far to exploit the latent anxieties about the economy. Ambivalence reigns on the chronically contentious issue of taxes: 59% are opposed to the general proposition of raising taxes to deal with the country's problems. Yet when asked if they would pay more taxes to achieve specific goals such as improving schools or fighting drugs, the respondents answered yes on each. Why the distinction? Because of deep skepticism about performance. By a resounding 73% to 19%, Americans believe Washington delivers "less value for the taxes you pay" than it did ten years...