*MORE PLEASE, SIR: Members of the conservative Republican Study Committee welcomed President Bush’s latest tax cut package and promised to push for even more. Rep. Pat Toomey (R.-Pa.) stated, \\\"The President’s stimulus package correctly focuses on providing essential tax relief to all taxpayers and eliminating some of the disincentives in the current tax code for business expansion and job creation. The President’s proposal is a great first step, but I believe Congress can and should do even more.\\\" New RSC Chairman Rep. Sue Myrick (R.-N.C.) mentioned some specific ideas for conservative congressmen to push: repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax for corporations and individuals, cutting or eliminating capital gains taxes, expanding Individual Retirement Accounts, and expanding depreciation and expensing for business.
*GRAVY FOR BUSH’S TAX CUTS? House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R.-Calif.) already has introduced a bill to add even more stimulus to President Bush’s proposal. As the President was making his speech in Chicago last week, Dreier was introducing the Investment Tax Incentive Act (HR 44), designed to create immediate investment in capital markets. Under the bill, stocks bought by individuals within the next two years and held for at least one year would be taxed at a capital gains rate of only 10%, rather than the current 20%. For business purchases, the rate would fall to 20% instead of 35%.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Tex.), who earlier had called Bush’s plan \\\"a floor, not a ceiling\\\" for tax legislation, backed the addition of Dreier’s proposal. \\\"I love that idea,\\\" DeLay said. Dreier believes his proposal would spur enough economic growth to pay for itself. A House aide told Congressional Quarterly that one Democrat, Ralph Hall of Texas, supports the measure, as do several Ways and Means Committee members, including Phil English (R.-Pa.) and Jennifer Dunn (R.-Wash.).
*JUDGE NOT: In addition to the President’s tax-cut proposal, there was more heartening news from the White House for conservatives last week. The President announced he was renominating 31 candidates for federal judgeships whose nominations were thwarted in the Democrat-controlled Senate last year. (See page 5.) The best known of the group were judges Charles Pickering of Mississippi and Priscilla Owen of Texas, whose nominations to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals were defeated in committee following a national campaign by pro-abortion groups and other liberal organizations. Democratic senators-led by Ted Kennedy (Mass.) and Charles Schumer (N.Y.)-immediately announced they would filibuster to stop Pickering in particular.
*TAX CUT BENEFITS SENIORS: United Seniors Association Chairman Charles Jarvis was delighted by the dividend tax repeal proposed in President Bush’s economic stimulus plan because it will provide substantial tax savings to senior citizens. \\\"Right now,\\\" Jarvis said, \\\"more than half of corporate dividends are received by taxpayers age 65 and older. So eliminating corporate dividend taxes will lift a large tax burden off seniors.\\\" Of the 28 million taxpayers 65 and older in 2003, 9.8 million will receive dividends, Jarvis said. Surprisingly, by the end of last week Bush’s plan had not received an endorsement from the largest seniors’ group, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), and no one from the organization had responded to HUMAN EVENTS’ request for comment.
*SAY IT AIN’T SO: Two Bush Administration officials have agreed to speak at the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s annual Wall Street shakedown this week, reported CNS News’ Marc Morano on January 6. \\\"Michael Powell, the Bush-designated chairman of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), and Roel Campos, the Bush-appointed commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), are both scheduled to appear January 16 at Jackson’s 6th annual Rainbow/PUSH Wall Street Project,\\\" said Morano. Niger Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality told CNS, \\\"The good efforts by the Bush Administration are being manipulated by Jackson in an attempt to rehabilitate his cash cow machine.\\\"
*REICH OUT-AND IN: The year-long recess appointment of controversial Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Otto Reich-a staunch anti-Castro conservative whose nomination the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to take up in 2002-ended last week and he will not be renominated to that position. Sources both on Capitol Hill and at the State Department told HUMAN EVENTS’ John Gizzi that, even though the GOP now runs the Senate, the President just didn’t want to fight with some farm-state Republican senators who are anti-Reich-notably Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (Ind.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.), all of whom favor trade with Cuba.
Refusing to jettison Reich, however, Bush last week named him \\\"presidential envoy\\\" to the Americas, reporting directly to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. This new White House post does not require Senate confirmation, but will allow Reich to continue lobbying for the hard-line Bush position against lifting the trade embargo on Cuba. The two leading contenders to replace him are U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Ann Patterson and Roger Noriega, onetime aide to former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.). Noriega, who shares Reich’s anti-Castro stand, is the early favorite of most conservatives.
*WHO GETS A ‘FREE RIDE’? One of the reasons behind Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle’s surprise announcement last week that he won’t run for President in ’04 is that, under South Dakota law, he could not simultaneously run for re-election to his Senate seat. As for other Democratic presidential prospects who are up for re-election next year, North Carolina’s John Edwards can run for the White House and re-election to his Senate seat, but Florida Sen. Bob Graham must by his state’s law do one or the other. Rep. Richard Gephardt (Mo.) announced last week that regardless of how far his just-launched presidential bid goes, he will not run again for the St. Louis-area House seat he has held since 1976.
