Saturday, February 24, 2001

Interest Groups Are Gearing Up for High-Stakes Tax Cut Fight The organizing goes far beyond the old-fashioned "Gucci Gulch" lobbying for particular corporate tax breaks, and is drawing groups as far- flung as the Food Marketing Institute and the N.A.A.C.P. into the tax cut debate. The Congressional struggle could well turn into the kind of epic fight for public opinion that took place over President Bill Clinton's proposal for national health insurance. "This is the first test," said Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, one of the conservative groups joining the fray. "If Bush gets his $1.6 trillion, two things happen � his stature and power in town is greatly enhanced and it makes the rest of his agenda more likely to pass." Promising field operations against the tax cut all across the country, Ralph G. Neas, of the liberal People for the American Way, said that in swaying Congress, "the most important thing is having the voters outside of Washington � the people who vote � register the opposition to the tax cut." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/24/politics/24LOBB.html?pagewanted=all

Tuesday, February 20, 2001

Federal Panel Warns Bush of Social Security Problems Beneficiaries must wait two to four hours for assistance at many field offices and often cannot obtain accurate information by telephone, the panel said. Social Security's disability programs, which provide assistance to 10 million people at a cost of $90 billion a year, are in chaos, swamped with a backlog of claims and litigation, the panel said. Eligibility decisions are not made in a uniform or consistent manner, the panel said, and two-thirds of the people who challenge the denial of disability benefits prevail on appeal, overturning the initial decisions of the Social Security Administration. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/politics/19BENE.html?pagewanted=all