Word: rostenkowski
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Clinton's wooing of Ways and Means is complicated by the troubles of its powerhouse chairman, Dan Rostenkowski, who sat through Wednesday night's speech looking as if he were in genuine pain. U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens is expected to indict Rostenkowski this spring or summer on charges of illegally converting House Post Office money to personal use. If that happens, his likely successor, Sam Gibbons of Florida, has neither the stature nor the knowledge of the tax code that will be needed to sell the Clinton plan to Congress. And since Clinton opened the door to new "incentives...
BACKDOWNS AND DELAYS Some tax boosts once widely talked about will not appear in the Clinton program. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski and other veterans of the bloody inheritance-tax wars of the 1970s successfully counseled the Administration not to fight that battle again. Clinton's aides found that eliminating mortgage-interest deductions for second homes would hit hard at many people who are decidedly not rich. "It turns out after you study it that a lot of autoworkers have cabins in Michigan," says a presidential assistant. Instead, the Administration is likely...
...people disobey needs some reviewing. Out of the estimated 2 million families that employ some kind of domestic help, roughly one-quarter ever files the necessary taxes. The Administration will be "looking at everything" in connection with the rules, says Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos. At the same time, Dan Rostenkowski, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, is sponsoring a bill that would simplify filings and permit people to pay the required taxes through their own 1040 form. He also wants to raise the $50-per-quarter minimum amount that triggers Social Security taxes, set back...
...does have some powerful backers. Among them: Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Michigan's John Dingell, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "Who's gonna conserve energy as long as gas is cheaper than bottled water?" asks Dingell, who favors the tax instead of strict new mileage standards for Detroit's automakers as a way to encourage gas conservation. Consumer groups say they could also live with a tax if some of the revenues were returned to low-income families...
...Rostenkowski's office denies the allegations, and has reacted indignantly. "Why doesn't Stephens look into typewriter ribbons or pencils, instead of stamps?" demanded spokesman Jim Jaffe last week. "Maybe he'd find some criminality there too." As for the chairman, he waves off the federal probe as a "fishing expedition." But fish can be caught -- even big ones -- and the trawlers seem to be circling...