Word: rostenkowski
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Council for a Secure America. "It would be by far the largest single bloc on the issue." Congress cannot afford to make too many concessions, because for every deduction they put back into the tax code, they must take one out to keep the package revenue neutral. Rostenkowski did not rule out seeking higher rates than the President proposed. But that risks losing the votes of key Republicans, notably Congressman Jack Kemp, who would like even lower rates...
...Democrats have to contend with their own throng of special interests. Hundreds of lobbyists who failed to win concessions from the White House began lining up three hours early for the first congressional hearing on Reagan's proposal. "I'm walking in an egg field," frets Rostenkowski, a master of malapropism. He knows that a concession to one interest group risks antagonizing others...
...Rostenkowski's greatest fear is that interest groups will band together for mutual support. It is widely expected that the restaurant, hotel, liquor and entertainment industries will make common cause to oppose limits on the deductibility of entertainment expenses and business meals. The last time Congress attempted to eliminate the three-martini-lunch deduction (in 1982), it took the restaurateurs all of 36 hours to stamp out the threat...
...Rosty" the reformer? No one who has watched Congressman Dan Rostenkowski cut a deal with a colleague or swing a golf club with a lobbyist has ever called him that. Indeed, as a former Chicago ward heeler and protege of the late Mayor Richard Daley, he seems to be the quintessential machine pol. Yet, by the peculiar dynamic of politics, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has become the point man for the most ambitious attempt ever at overhauling the loophole-laden tax code. "The reform hat I am wearing is not yet comfortable," Rostenkowski cheerfully confessed...
Democratic leaders, who could hardly do otherwise, all praised Reagan's < push for reform -- in principle, at least. But on Capitol Hill, Rostenkowski warns, the tax-reform blueprint will be worked over by "535 independent contractors that all have an agenda of their own." Whether the final structure will stand, or even get finished, is highly uncertain...