Untitled
Begala felt that the entire team should stress...
10:44 PM, Monday, May 3, 2010
.. Link
Begala felt that the entire team should stress three points: that deficit reduction is not an end in itself, but the means to achieve the real objectiveseconomic growth, more jobs, and higher incomes; that our plan represented a fundamental change in the way government had been working, ending the irresponsibility and unfairness of the past by asking the wealthy big corporations, and other special interests that had benefited disproportionately from the tax cuts and deficits of the 1980s to pay their fair share of cleaning up the mess; and that we should not say we were asking people to sacrifice but to contribute to Americas renewal, a more patriotic and positive formulationBegala wrote a memo containing his arguments and suggesting a new theme: Its NOT the deficit, stupidGene Sperling, Bob Reich, and George Stephanopoulos agreed with Paul, and were glad to have some inside help in arguing the message
While all this was going on in public, we were struggling hard with some big questionsBy far the largest was whether to include health-care reform along with the economic plan in the omnibus Budget Reconciliation ActThere was a compelling argument for doing so: first, the budget, unlike all other legislation, isnt subject to the filibuster rule, the Senate practice that allows just forty-one senators to kill any bill by debating it to death, blocking a vote until the Senate has to move on to other businessSince the Senate had forty-four Republicans, the probability that they would at least try to filibuster health care was high
Hillary and Ira Magaziner badly wanted health care in the budget, the congressional leaders were open to it, gucci watch uk and Dick Gephardt had urged Hillary to do it, because he was sure the Republican senators would try to filibuster health care if it were proposed by itselfGeorge Mitchell was sympathetic for another reason: If health-care reform were introduced as a separate bill, it would be referred to the Senate Finance Committee, whose chairman, Senator Pat Moynihan of New York, was, to put it mildly, skeptical that we could come up with a workable health-care plan so quicklyMoynihan recommended that we first do welfare reform, and spend the next two years developing a health-care proposal
The economic team was adamantly opposed to including health care in the budget, and they had good reasons, tooIra Magaziner and many health-care economists believed, correctly as it turned out, that greater competition in the health-care marketplace, which our plan would promote, would produce significant savings without price controlsBut the Congressional Budget Office would not give credit for these savings in any budget we presentedThus, to provide universal coverage, we had either to include a provision for backup price controls in the plan, raise taxes and cut other spending even further, or reduce the deficit target, which might adversely affect our strategy to lower interest rates
I decided to delay the decision until after I put the details of the economic plan before the people and the CongressNot long afterward, the decision was made for meOn March 11, Senator Robert Byrd, the senior Senate Democrat and ultimate authority on the bodys rules, told us he would not make an exception for health care to the Byrd rule, which prohibited the inclusion of chanel body jewelry nongeneric items in the budget-reconciliation billWe had enlisted everyone we could think of to make the case to Byrd, but he was adamant that health-care reform could not be construed as part of the basic budget processNow, if the Republicans could sustain a filibuster, our health-care plan would be dead on arrival
In the second week of February, we decided to kick the health-care can down the road and complete the rest of the economic planI had become deeply immersed in the details of budgeting, determined to understand the human impact of our decisionsMost of the team wanted to cut farm supports and other rural programs, which they thought were unjustifiableAlice Rivlin pushed hard for the cuts, suggesting I could then say I had ended welfare for farmers as we know itIt was a takeoff on one of my best campaign lines, a pledge to end welfare as we know itI reminded my mostly urban budgeteers that farmers were good people who had chosen hard work in an uncertain environment, and though we had to make some cuts in their programs, we dont have to enjoy itSince we couldnt restructure the whole farm program, reduce the subsidies in other nations budgets, or eliminate all the foreign barriers to our food exports, we ended up reducing the existing farm benefits modestly
Another thing we had to consider in proposing cuts, of course, was whether they had a chance to passFor example, someone said we could save a lot of money by eliminating all the so-called highway-demonstration projects, which were specific spending items members of Congress obtained for their districts or statesWhen the suggestion came up, my new congressional liaison, Howard balenciaga yellow Paster, shook his head in disbeliefPaster had worked in both the House and Senate and for both Democratic and Republican lobbying firmsA New Yorker with a brusque, candid manner, Howard snapped, How many votes does the bond market have? Of course, he knew we had to convince the bond market that our deficit-reduction plan was credible, but he wanted us to remember that it first had to pass, and inflicting personal pain on members of Congress was unlikely to prove a successful strategy
Some of the proposals we considered were so absurd they were comicalWhen someone suggested we impose fees for Coast Guard services, I asked how they would workIt was explained that the Coast Guard was quite often called upon to bring in boats that were in distress, often due to the negligence of the operatorsI laughed and said, So when we pull up alongside, or throw down a rope from a helicopter, before we do the rescue, were going to ask, Visa? MasterCard??We let that one go, but eventually we did come up with more than 150 budget cuts
Deciding on the tax increases was no easier than choosing the budget cutsThe toughest issue for me was the BTU taxIt was bad enough that I was going back on my commitment to cut middle-class taxes; now I was told we had to raise them, both to reach the $140 billion deficit reduction target in the fifth year and to turn the psychology of the bond marketThe middle class had been shafted in the eighties, and Bush had been crippled by signing a gas-tax increaseIn one fell swoop, if I proposed the BTU tax I would make the Republicans the anti-tax party again, largely to satisfy the hunger of the prosperous interest-rate setters chanel j12 watch for a little middle-class pain, in this case about $9 a month in direct costs, rising to $17 when indirect costs, in the form of higher prices for consumer products, were includedLloyd Bentsen said that he had never had any fallout from voting for energy taxes, and that Bush was hurt by signing the 1990 gas-tax increase because of his read my lips pledge and the fact that the most militant anti-taxers were hard-core RepublicansGore again pushed for the BTU tax, saying it would promote energy conservation and independence
Finally, I gave in, but made some other changes in Treasurys tax proposals that I hoped would reduce the tax burden on average AmericansI insisted that we include in the budget the full $26 billion cost of my campaign proposal to more than double the tax cut for millions of working families with incomes of $30,000 or less, called the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and for the first time offer a more modest EITC to more than 4 million working poor Americans without dependentsThis proposal would ensure that, even with the energy tax, working families with incomes of $30,000 or less would still receive a meaningful tax cutOn the campaign trail, I had said at virtually every stop, No one with children who works full-time should live in povertyIn 1993, there were a lot of people in that situationAfter we doubled the EITC, more than four million of them moved out of poverty into the middle class during my presidency
As we were trying to close the deal, Laura Tyson said she felt she had to point out that there was no significant economic difference between a fifth-year reduction of $140 billion and one of $120 or $125 gucci fabric billio
{ Last Page } { Page 4 of 91 } { Next Page }
About Me
My Profile
Archives
Friends
My Photo Album
Links
Categories
Recent Entries
I loved rock-and-roll music and dancing and went...Brian Harbour, a fine young pastor who...
He felt around for a piece of wood, found one and...
Begala felt that the entire team should stress...
When we took a break, my legal team was...