WSJ: Congress Delays Plans To Extend Bush's Tax Cuts

[question everything]

Congress Delays Plans To Extend Bush's Tax Cuts

Republicans See High Costs, Political Risk After Katrina;
Limited Window for Action

By BRODY MULLINS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 13, 2005; Page A1

(snip)

The House and Senate had planned a fall legislative agenda around a massive budget bill that extended to 2010 the 15% tax rate on dividends and capital gains signed by President Bush two years ago. The cut was one of the president's signature initiatives and is seen inside the White House as a key part of his economic legacy.

The 15% rate isn't scheduled to expire until the end of 2008 -- meaning there's still time to push an extension through. But Republicans, chastened by the costs of rebuilding the Gulf Coast and negative public assessments of Washington's initial response to the hurricane, have decided that taking any action on the bill is politically untenable at least until late October in the suddenly changed political and budgetary environment.

(snip)

Also in question with the delay are prospects for significant new curbs on Medicaid, the joint federal-state health-care program for the poor. The budget bill would cut $10 billion from the program over the next five years, but a bipartisan group of senators is calling such cuts inappropriate at a time when tens of thousands of poor people have been displaced from their homes.

Lawmakers do appear likely to approve a temporary measure exempting millions of middle-income taxpayers from paying the so-called Alternative Minimum Tax, which has increased the tax burden for a growing portion of Americans in recent years. Without such action, which enjoys strong support among senators of both parties, those middle-income taxpayers would face a significant tax increase next year.

(snip)

Write to Brody Mullins at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112657392052038873,00.html (subscription)

[barbaraann]

1. They're just going to funnel the money to the wealthy through FEMA

for Katrina relief, etc. Every single cell in a Republican's body is rabidly focused on getting every single penny that ordinary people and the government have and while their strategy and tactics may change their objective remains the same.

No amount of wealth ever satisfies a Republican. They are economic land sharks who never stop feeding on ordinary people no matter how much they have.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Yup, they'll be back, unless...

"But Republicans, chastened by the costs of rebuilding the Gulf Coast and negative public assessments of Washington's initial response to the hurricane, have decided that taking any action on the bill is politically untenable at least until late October in the suddenly changed political and budgetary environment." --WSJ

...unless we start dumping Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' (so to speak) (--or a Louisiana levee might do).

We need a BIG BROOM, folks. And the Republicans are not the only ones who need their house cleaned. There is bipartisan corruption in the new electronic voting boondoggle. Look to your secretaries of state and county election officials for WHY we are in the worst mess we've ever seen in our entire history--comparable to the Great Depression and the Civil War. Our election SYSTEM is fraudulent--non-transparent, unverifiable, the votes "tabulated" with SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite companies--and THAT is not only Republican doing! Who SIGNED the contracts including "trade secret" vote tabulation, that took away our right to vote? WHO was it cavorting at the Beverly Hilton this August--a week of fun, sun and high-end shopping, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia? It wasn't just Republicans!

[warrens]

3. Of course, this has nothing to do with doing the right thing

It's just fear of what might happen to them in Nov. 06. Sleazy crumb-bums, the lot of them.