Word: softener
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...TIME/CNN poll showed respondents approving the plan 62% to 27%. Clinton also got a boost from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a stalwart conservative, who not only commended the President but also indicated that the Fed would cooperate by holding down interest rates to soften the bite of higher taxes. But the first barrage of phone calls to Congress was highly negative, and there is something in the plan to offend almost every interest employing a lobbyist with an in at a particular congressional committee. Budget Director Leon Panetta told the Washington Post that chances of congressional passage are only...
Some professors laughed at placards saying, "Reason #73 to diversify the faculty: If there is another sit-in Bob Clark will have to shave his head." Other signs made further reference to Law School Dean Robert C. Clark's newly shaven face. Clark reportedly shaved his beard to soften his image in the eyes of the community...
...Clinton team has sought to dampen expectations in Haiti while it works out a new policy. To soften criticism that the U.S. was violating international law by forcing refugees back into the arms of their persecutors -- a practice candidate Clinton had denounced as "a blow to America's moral authority in defending the rights of refugees" -- the new Administration said it would open up new refugee-processing centers around the country. But Clinton recognizes that no mere modifications of asylum rules, however humanely intended, can permanently stop the wave of immigrants to U.S. shores. It is much harder -- and much...
...year; further restricting itemized deductions for upper- income taxpayers; taxing more of the Social Security benefits of high- income pensioners. Any one of these would enrage politically powerful groups, but efforts to ease the pain -- rebating gasoline taxes to lower- and middle-income people, for example -- would soften any bite taken out of the deficit. "We aren't close ((to agreement)) yet," says an adviser. "Will we be there in three weeks? Maybe...
...reduces the debt he will be widely hailed. So Clinton is right to back off his plan for a middle-class tax cut and right again to "revisit" the proposal to increase gasoline taxes, regressive levies he routinely dismissed as unfair during the campaign. He is even right to soften his campaign rhetoric about halving the deficit in four years, downgrading that objective from a pledge to a "goal." Backing away from an unrealistic target sooner rather than later can save him considerable political trouble down the line -- as long as he guards against eroding the discipline necessary...