Moderate Republican senators, at long last, seem to be rising up against the hardliners who seem to dominate their party and are refusing to ramrod through ever more irresponsible tax cuts to augment the humongous deficit. It's sort of like the opposite effect of Zell Miller; these "blue state" republicans have to moderate themselves to retain support of their constitutents. Good for them, and good for us. Frist: Senate May Debate Tax Cut Budget 21 minutes ago Add Politics - U. S. Congress to My Yahoo! By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - A rebellion among moderate Republican senators trying to curb tax cuts has thrust the compromise $2.4 trillion budget for 2005 into deep trouble in the Senate, despite the measure's House passage. AP Photo As GOP leaders searched for support, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he might begin debate anyway on the legislation Thursday — even with the moderates holding firm. "If that's the reality, we may as well show it to the world," Frist told reporters. The House used a mostly party-line 216-213 vote Wednesday to approve the fiscal blueprint, a modest one-year plan shorn of any long-range policies on deficit-reduction or job creation to minimize controversy. Republican leaders were hoping the House vote and pressure from administration officials would get Senate GOP moderates to relent. "I hope senators recognize the importance of helping our nation's families and urge them to act quickly to make sure millions of taxpayers don't get hit with a tax hike," Treasury Secretary John Snow said in a written statement. Although many House moderates heeded their GOP leaders appeal for support on the spending measure, four of their Senate colleagues — plus moderate Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, another target of lobbying by the legislation's supporters — were not as ready to accommodate. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on Wednesday became the last of the group to say she would oppose the budget, leaving GOP leaders two votes shy of what they needed for approval, at least for now. The moderates said record federal deficits mean tax cuts should be constrained. A failure by the GOP-run Congress to complete a budget would be an election-year embarrassment for the party, whose leaders vowed to pass a spending plan to highlight their ability to govern. It is also a slap at Bush, who has opposed the tax-cut curbs GOP moderates and Democrats want. Having no budget would make it harder for Congress to cut taxes and raise the government's borrowing limit later this year. The budget measure is a guide for future tax and spending bills. The compromise version, reached in House-Senate negotiations and approved by the House late Wednesday would pave the way for tax cuts, but ones more modest than what Bush proposed. It would impose constraints on tax cuts for one year, although exempting a single-year $27.5 billion tax bill Congress is expected to pass this year. That measure keeps the lowest 10 percent tax bracket, the $1,000 per child tax credit and breaks for two-income married couples from getting smaller, as scheduled under current law. It also claims to leave next year's deficit at $367 billion — just below last year's $375 billion record, and $4 billion more than what forecasters expect without the budget's proposed policies. The measure also would bestow big boosts on defense and anti-terrorism programs, with only slightly increases for other domestic programs. The House vote and the apparent impasse in the Senate culminate a two-month standoff between the two GOP-led chambers over whether record deficits should require future tax cuts should to be limited. That conflict has clearly angered House leaders. "We'll do what we can do, and good luck to them," the No. 3 House GOP leader Roy Blunt of Missouri said of the Senate. In March, Democrats and moderate Republicans forced into the original Senate version a requirement that tax cuts and expanded benefits be paid for with either spending cuts or tax increases for five years. That passed the Senate. The House version had no such restrictions. Finally, a compromise was reached settling on the one-year tax curbs. Bush proposed a more ambitious tax cutting agenda — nearly $1.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, mostly by making recent tax reductions permanent. Bush also proposed halving this year's huge deficit — expected to exceed $400 billion — in five years. The compromise congressional plan achieves that goal, but partly because its tax cuts would last only for one year and it lacks a long-range defense buildup. It also: _Meets Bush's request of $421 billion for defense, 7 percent over this year. There is another $50 billion for wars in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), of which Bush has so far requested half; _Increases domestic security by 15 percent to $31 billion, while holding remaining domestic programs to $369 billion, $2 billion over this year. _Drops earlier House plans to pare $13 billion in savings from benefit programs like Medicaid over the next five years.
And Denny Hastert has started b****ing at McCain (like they were last week about him and Warner, war heros both, for digging too deeply on Abu Ghraib).....I think the GOP leadership hates him more than Clinton.
Thank God there are still some Republicans out there who stand for fiscal responsibility. I have been thinking that I was in Superman's Bizarro World with the spending being done by the GOP controlled congress and administration. We need to right our fiscal boat and we need to do it fast. Who was the last president to balance the budget again?
They are Republicans in name only. I wish they could do something about these spineless jellyfish. Give back to the people of this country what is rightly theirs. Fiscal responsibility is cutting out all this unnecessary spending, like needless military bases, farming subsidies to the Scottie Pippens of the world. getting rid of the fraud known as Federal flood insurance, giving MacDonalds money to promote their product overseas, etc. Cut that and junk that godawful prescription drug disaster instead of denying people from keeping more of what THEY earned.
It's been said for a while in many places that the present administration is more of a fringe group who have taken over the Republican party than an example of traditional party values, but it's quite a gutsy move for someone of high profile from within the party to essentially point this out in public. The problem for him is, while Bush/CHeney et al may represent the so-called Neconservative movement, and not the party as a whole, when you attack them you are opposing the party's present power ticket, which will lose you some friends, and moreover you come up against the very political strength of that movement that enabled it to assume control; it's group-think commonality and intransigence. McCain has, IMO, done the right thing, but he probably hasn't done his immediate political career any favors. I see parallels between McCain and Powell, and feel that both are trying to be voices of reason within an unreasonable administration, and McCain has less power but also less built in restraints on what he can say and do publicly. God, if only those two were the Republican ticket.
You are looking more and more like one of the lock-step neocons every day. It certainly appears to be you (along with others) who have been assimilated. And if you want ANY of this to happen, the first step will be getting this administration out. I cannot believe you are going to vote for Bush and not the Libertarians given your views.
If conservatives were really for less government spending they would reduce the national debt not increase it. The spending on the interest in one of the largest expendatures our govt. has and nobody gets any benefits from it. Our govt could spend more than 10% less in it's TOTAL budget. Then we could afford tax cuts, or more services or whatever people wanted. But the fact is that giving tax money back when it's noted only costs the govt. more in interest payments. Guess which party is trying to raise the celing on deficit spending currently?
If you believe in the Laffer Curve, you'd believe that decreasing tax rates can give you the same amount of revenue as a higher tax rate would.
That only holds if we're on a particular part of the laffer curve, and you'd be hard pressed to find many serious economists that think we are in the downward sloping region.
Doesnt' there have to be a point when that is no longer true? Do you think this admin is seriously basing policy on sound economic theory, or mearly chanting the lower-taxes-good mantra?
You do realize that everything you mentioned here has been propogated and increased (or created by) the very people you are defending as the right ones to lead this country. The "liberals" didn't create any of these programs, the GOP did (the only exception might be the McDonalds thing, I just don't know who started that bill).
I was driving around this morning and caught a Rush rant that slammed McCain pretty good... basically called him a liberal.
Sure, there's such a point, but who knows where it is. I don't know what they believe. I know the President's father was never a believer (and proved it during his presidency). They certainly don't seem to explain it the way one would if they were true believers in the economic theory.
Others will start soon... with this and the quotes coming out of the hearing in the other thread, the Dems better think about nationalizing the House and Senate races real soon... _______________ Bush slide worries the party By Alexander Bolton and Geoff Earle The Hill May 20, 2004 Republican members of Congress are growing increasingly concerned over President Bush’s sinking approval rating and the souring public mood over the war in Iraq. At the same time, many members say Bush’s poll numbers are also affecting them by coloring public opinion about the economy and other issues more directly linked to their own re-election prospects. A recent Gallup Poll showed Bush’s job approval at 46 percent, the lowest of his presidency, and a Zogby International poll earlier this week put his job approval number at 42 percent, also the lowest of his presidency. Not since Harry S Truman in 1948 has a president won a second term with an approval rating below 50 percent. However, congressional Republicans are keeping cool heads even as new opinion polls show a steep drop in Bush’s approval rating and an increase in the number of people who think the country is on the wrong track. The Republicans are not calling for any major policy changes or shifts in political tactics to reverse the trend. Instead, they say, the drop is most likely a temporary reaction to bad news in Iraq that will be remedied in time, particularly if the economy picks up. While most of the 20 House and Senate Republicans surveyed by The Hill as Congress prepared for the Memorial Day recess professed to be optimistic about the president’s public standing, many also hinted at anxieties. “Iraq has become a concern,” said Rep. Tom Feeney (Fla.). “It’s a picture that none of us see the end of.” Feeney added that voters “would like to have some understanding of the end game, when and how Iraq will end.” Rep. Peter King (N.Y.) echoed Feeney’s comments. “Of course I’m concerned, but not at all panicked,” King said when asked about Bush’s sliding poll numbers. House GOP Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (Ohio) gave a speech yesterday to conservative activists and opinion leaders at the National Republican Congressional Committee about the “prism of Iraq.” Pryce and other GOP leaders urged the lawmakers and Republican allies to focus public attention on the accomplishments of U.S. troops in Iraq. The House GOP Memorial Day recess message packet bears on its cover the picture of World War II-era and contemporary troops along with the slogan “Soldiers of Yesterday, Heroes of Today.” Meanwhile, Senate Republicans blamed the unease in the GOP ranks on the Iraqi prisoner-abuse scandal and the increasing violence and deteriorating situation in Iraq. “My guess is that this is a reaction to the prisoner flap,” said Sen. Robert Bennett (Utah). “The volatility suggests that the whole situation is far from being firm and that the numbers could well change again as rapidly as they did.” Bennett said he doesn’t view the poll numbers as any kind of “sea change” — as when the public turned against President Ford after his pardon of Richard Nixon. “Let’s get a little closer to the election before we start deciding it,” he cautioned. “Remember Howard Dean.” Most Republicans appear to be standing by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the president’s team, without second-guessing his decision to take the nation to war or calling for immediate policy shifts there. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) said the key is to re-establish security in Iraq as the political transfer of authority approaches next month. “It’s obvious the Iraq situation has had a significant impact,” he said. “The key to this thing is getting it back on track.” McCain has pushed the administration to get sufficient troops on the ground in Iraq. “If you’ve got the situation under control,” McCain said, “the American people will obviously approve, and [Bush has] got a strong economic wind at his back.” Republicans are also making the disconcerting discovery that the war has eclipsed a rapidly improving economy and their accomplishments on Medicare and other domestic issues. King and other Republicans were quick to claim that the economy — traditionally voters’ No. 1 issue — is doing very well. But to the chagrin of many Republicans, voters are nevertheless increasingly dissatisfied over Bush’s handling of the economy. King said the poor view of Bush’s handling of the economy despite indications that it’s improving is a “reflection of the public being concerned about Iraq. [Iraq] is affecting everything else,” he said. An ABC News and Money magazine poll released Sunday showed that a majority of those surveyed, 63 percent, rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor.” Only 37 percent said the economy was “good” or “excellent.” A NBC News and Wall Street Journal survey earlier this month showed that 53 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Bush’s handling of the economy while 41 percent approved. But perhaps most alarming for Republicans, a Time/CNN poll conducted May 12 and 13 showed that respondents favored Democrats over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot by a margin of 13 points, 53 to 40 percent. One Senate leadership aide discovered from searching a national database of press clips that only two newspapers mentioned the improving economy in their op-ed pages since the Labor Department announced two weeks ago that 288,000 new jobs were created in April. The polling trends have spurred the Republican leadership to undertake a concerted effort to move public attention away from the public-relations setbacks in Iraq to the things that are going well there and here at home. GOP leaders are also pressing their colleagues to highlight the 1.1 million new jobs created since last August, the fastest growth in gross domestic product in 20 years and the record homeownership rate. If there is a silver lining for Republicans, it is that some polls have been inconsistent and hard to explain. A recent Newsweek poll, for example, showed Bush’s job approval dropping about seven percentage points from April to May. But at the same time, Bush fared somewhat better in a head-to-head match-up with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Although Republicans are trailing Democrats in several polls on the “generic” question of which party respondents want to elect to Congress, voters tend to make those decisions based on individual candidates and the polls don’t take into account other factors like redistricting, or other factors, such as the existence of several open-seat races in the GOP-friendly South. Not surprisingly, the recent polls have brought new optimism to Democrats. Any time an incumbent president sees his approval numbers drop below 50 percent, “it obviously spells trouble,” said Sen. John Breaux (La.). “I think they need some kind of major event in Iraq in order to pull this thing out,” he added. “If we’re in the same situation in the election we are today in Iraq, it’ll be just devastating.”
mrpaige - if you see my post, I siad there was a point, and no serious economists think we are in the downard sloping regime of the laffer curve. There is not any evidence whatsoever that we are at a point of negative marginal returns to taxation, and in fact, much evidence to the contrary. While it's theoretically possible, we'd need to see taxation rates much MUCH higher than they are for negative marginal returns to taxation to kick in. The evidence is simply not there.
So, you're saying that we're on the left side of the curve? Given our level of taxation, that makes me wonder what the hub-bub was in the first place since, if we'd have to go a lot higher, the peak of the curve must be way on up there (like what? 70%, 90%). (I missed your post originally. I admit it).
While no one would know the point in the Laffer point lower taxation does not equal greater revenue. It is safe to say that currently we have lowered taxes twice in Bush's administration and the deficit has grown both times. There are different kinds of tax relief as well. When Reagan lowered some taxes he raised others, and still the deficit grew. When taxes were raised under Clinton's watch the deficit decreased. I don't know where the point on the curve is either. I do believe that by gauging are growing deficit and debt we are have surpassed that point on the curve.
