Word: tax-cutting
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Which may help explain why George W. Bush looked a bit mystified last week as he struggled to interest voters in one of the biggest tax-cut proposals in recent history. Taunted by Al Gore's accusations that his plan favors the rich and endangers America's prosperity, Bush and his aides abandoned their Theme of the Week--education--and spent their time rebutting Gore and explaining (and then explaining again) Bush's plan. This marked the campaign's first serious message derailment since last February, when Bush visited Bob Jones University while slugging it out with John McCain...
Frank: Yes, reporters' appetite for pushing Bush on debates has nudged him off- message, but so have prescription drugs, the tax-cut plan, and Dick Cheney's golden parachute. Bush is having a lousy week, but he's not obligated to choose a debate schedule now just because Gore is standing around making clucking sounds and calling Bush chicken...
...touting what is by any measure a serious tax cut: he needed to react to Bush. That political reality is apparent to voters, and may be one reason many people aren't tuning into this debate. "He's got to cave in and respond to all of Bush's tax-cut talk," says Howard Richards, 68, a retired real estate broker who turned up last week at a Gore tax event in Florida. Another reason is that Gore knows Democrats argue against tax cuts at their peril. Gore's side "spent 20 years getting hammered about the head by Republicans...
...suspend disbelief for a moment. Assuming the surplus does come through, what would the tax-cut plans really do for people? Bush says under his plan, a hard-working family earning $60,000 would be spared an additional $2,050 in taxes; under Gore's, he says, they would save nothing. But Gore points to an eerily similar-looking family and says just the opposite. So who's lying...
...come from Steve ("Flat Tax") Forbes. They were worried that Forbes would paint Bush as soft on taxes, like his father. To counter that, Bush proposed a tax cut massive enough to impress fiscal conservatives, but one that also included a pro-working family element. Result: a $1.6 trillion promise. The irony: Forbes never caught fire. Bush found himself saddled with a jumbo tax cut against an opponent--McCain--who argued for being fiscally prudent and paying down debt. Bush went on to win the nomination, of course, but he's still lugging around his tax-cut plan. And McCain...