Posted on 09/04/2005 12:03:30 AM PDT by Crackingham
Republican leaders intended to return to work with a dream agenda for small-government conservatives: permanent repeal of the estate tax, an extension of deep cuts to capital gains and dividend taxes, the first entitlement spending cuts in nearly a decade, and the advent of private investment accounts for Social Security. But Congress and the White House are on the spot to respond to Hurricane Katrina's historic Gulf Coast destruction and skyrocketing gasoline prices, and the leadership is feeling pressure to set aside or jettison parts of that well-laid agenda.
The federal budget already is stretched by spending on the war in Iraq and a nearly $11 billion emergency hurricane relief package that was rushed through Congress late this week. GOP leaders will have to justify additional tax relief for upper-income people at a time of civil and economic crisis.
"How do you do tax cuts when your budget is straining to save lives?" asked Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla). The Ways and Means Committee on which Foley serves had been set to pass a package of tax cuts and spending cuts by the end of September, followed by broad, controversial Social Security legislation. Katrina "is going to have a tremendous impact," he added.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) said he has every intention of pushing forward with the tax and spending cuts and Social Security legislation. Hurricane-related legislation will not be controversial and "may mean we work on a Friday or two," he said.
SNIP
Marshall Wittmann, a former Republican political strategist now with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said the GOP agenda looks like "political suicide."
"The entire fiscal landscape has been transformed in the last week," Wittmann said. "The entire Republican agenda of tax cuts, Social Security reform and big spending on pet Republican projects is over."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Just before the President got everything he wanted last term, this very paper predicted he was a lame duck who would get nothing. Keep that in mind.
No way am I going to be a part of rebuilding a city-in-a-bowl, run by Socialists.
It's like christmas for liberals! The MSM is making big wishes!
When this all settles, the truth will get out, like with the national guard story, and both the MSM and the liberals who run LA/NOLA will be tarred and feathered.
Rescue, Recovery, Relief - Spend what you need.
Rebuild - Only if you rebuild somewhere above sea level, and no money to be spent on non-infrastructure costs. Private residences, and commercial/industrial buildings can be built using private funds.
How do they say it? Zone it and they will come?
Dream on, Qumquats.
All well and good, but don't underestimate the size and scope of this disaster.
More MSM wishful thinking.
And the conclusion:
"None of that will necessarily mean the abandonment of tax cutting and cuts to Medicaid, student loans, farm price supports and other popular programs. Conservative activists hotly denied that there had been any slackening of will.
"I don't think Republicans will be fooled into taking this necessary spending and using it to oppose pro-growth tax cuts," said Grover G. Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, who castigated Reid for "using this tragedy and those deaths for his own political desires."
Exactly what I was coming to post, word for word.
GMTA. :)
They dredge up one fossil RINO staffer and "attribute" a quote to him, and build a story out of it to claim "Republicans" are abandoning their strategy.
And then they claim to be objective?
Yep. As unbiased as Al-Jazz AL-Jaizeeria Ali-baba The Muslim Network.
The energy dividends to the country in a few years will erase any deficit quickly.
Congressional Republicans did not plan to cut spending, ever.
The GOP has already surrendered, AGAIN, on tax cuts... I will probably never vote again.
Really? Practice saying Presideent Clinton..Imagine Majority Leader Kerry or Kennedy..
Please, if they're gonna be big spending tax raisers it doesn't matter if there is an R or D by the name.
Please, don't be fool! Let's imagine the Rats in power... it would be a fiscal, social, judicial and political nightmare!
socially we have open borders, anyone and everyone can get in-even terrorists
judicially they'd pass their judges, not like we're gonna be allowed votes on anyone 'conservative' during 8 years of Bush, political nightmare, read 2008
"We in the media hope....".
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