Political Memo: Resurrecting Ghosts of Pardons Past His testimony revealed little about how Mr. Rich won his pardon, and Republicans had worked behind the scenes to spare him from appearing at all. But by calling him, Representative Henry A. Waxman, the committee's ranking Democrat, sought to make a point: Mr. Clinton may have been irresponsible in issuing his final sheaf of pardons, but Republicans do not have completely clean hands on the issue. During the hearing, Mr. Waxman cited the case of Orlando Borsch, suspected of being a terrorist from Cuba, who was released from jail in 1990 by the administration of former President George Bush. Jeb Bush, the former president's son who is now the governor of Florida, had lobbied for Mr. Borsch's release, which had become a cause c�l�bre among Cuban-Americans in South Florida. The Borsch case was not the only one that Mr. Waxman raised as he sought to turn the tables on Republican investigators in what has become the Democrats' tried-and-true technique for trying to trip up the many inquiries started by Mr. Burton, Republican of Indiana. Mr. Waxman said he found the pardon of Armand Hammer just as suspicious as that of Mr. Rich. In 1989, former President Bush pardoned Mr. Hammer, the former head of Occidental Petroleum who had pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions. Mr. Hammer was a major donor to Republicans. Shortly before he received the pardon, he gave more than $100,000 to the Republican Party and $100,000 to the Bush-Quayle Inaugural Committee. "The appearance of a quid pro quo is just as strong in the Hammer case as in the Rich case, if not stronger, since Mr. Hammer himself gave the contribution," Mr. Waxman said. In the case of Mr. Rich, it was his former wife, Denise, who was both a pardon advocate and major donor � she gave $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library. Mr. Waxman called on Mr. Burton to subpoena the library records of the Republican administrations to look into potential abuses. Mr. Burton did not take him up on his offer. "I was turned down," Mr. Waxman said. "It seems we can pursue President Clinton's library, but not President Bush's or President Reagan's." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/politics/04MEMO.html?pagewanted=allt

Doing the Math on Bush's Tax Cut In all of Washington, there are three computer models built to produce what are called distributional tables � showing how any particular tax increase or tax cut would be distributed among various income levels. One model is at the Treasury Department, one is at Congress's Joint Tax Committee and one is at Citizens for Tax Justice, a research institute sponsored by labor unions. The methods are slightly different. But in the end, the analyses differ only at the margins. In the past, Democrats ran either the Treasury Department or the Joint Tax Committee � depending on which party controlled the White House and which controlled Congress � and whenever a tax proposal was made, the computer the Democrats were in charge of would instantly produce a distributional table. But Republicans have never liked that kind of measurement, saying it contributed to class warfare. So this year, with Republicans in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time in almost 50 years, neither the Treasury nor Congress has provided distributional tables on President Bush's tax plan. � Tax analysts from both parties who have worked at the Congressional Joint Tax Committee and the Office of Tax Analysis in the Treasury say the relevant information on how the Bush plan would affect people with different incomes is already in the computers. All it would take to produce the distributional tables would be for someone to push a button, the analysts said. But that may not happen. At a press briefing on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill said that figuring out what the tax benefits of the president plan would be at various income levels resulted only in "a nonsense set of statistics." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/politics/04CONG.html?pagewanted=all

Doing the Math on Bush's Tax Cut If the entire plan becomes law, the richest 1 percent of taxpayers would get between 22 percent and 45 percent of the tax benefits, depending on how the calculations are done. These are the 1.3 million taxpayers with annual incomes of more than about $370,000. Because some of them are fabulously wealthy, the average income of these taxpayers is more than $1 million. The poorest 60 percent of taxpayers, those with incomes below $44,000, would receive less than 13 percent of the money from lower taxes in the Bush proposals. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/politics/04CONG.html?pagewanted=all

Chicago Tribune | News - Columnists - Clarence Page Yet there he was portraying himself as the crusading victim as he gave his pep talk to the right-wing's troops. "Today, no one can honestly be surprised by the venomous attacks" unleashed on anyone who strays from the conventional wisdom, Thomas said. Right. Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House--helped along, as I recall, by a fortuitous Supreme Court decision in which Thomas helped end the recount of Florida's presidential votes. Thomas had Vice President Dick Cheney and several Cabinet members sitting in the audience while he spun his tale of woe and delivered his defiant closing to robust applause: "Be not afraid!" Afraid? Excuse me? Afraid of what? Too much power?� Echoes of his speech have come to mind as I have been reading a book that has critics of America's civil rights leadership all abuzz this season. It is called "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America," by John H. McWhorter, a black associate professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. It's the best among the latest of what I call "black self-flagellation" books. Since at least 1990, when Shelby Steele's seminal "Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America" came out, it seems that no black writer has gone broke by portraying black people as our own worst enemy. Quite the opposite, one can win instant fame, high-priced speaking engagements, warm praise from conservative talk-show hosts and perhaps even a lucrative fellowship or two. (The same is true, by the way, of many so-called "post-feminist" books that describe feminism as a betrayal of women, but that's a topic for another day.) http://chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/page/0,1122,SAV-0103040059,00.html

News Analysis: Surplus Feast - Will Tax-Cut Appetizer Leave Room for Debt-Slice Dessert? But very little in Washington is exactly what it seems, and this is no exception. Paying down the debt and "saving Social Security first" became, in the Clinton years, Democratic ideas, which Mr. Bush is now paying homage to in an effort to win over Democrats and secure quick passage of his tax cut. The details released today, however, suggest something a bit more subtle. Mr. Bush has now redefined the national debt, so that it looks more manageable. And Mr. Bush's aides are arguing that it does not need to be paid off so fast � which, conveniently, leaves them a bit more room for their own favorite programs, like a national missile defense, new spending on education and creating private Social Security accounts. All of this raises two questions: Which party is pursuing the more conservative course? And what does it say about the ideology of George W. Bush, whose "compassionate conservatism" seemed at times an effort to dress up the philosophy of Ronald Reagan in the moderate poll- tested oratory of Bill Clinton? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/01/politics/01ASSE.html?pagewanted=all

Civil Works and Loans Targeted in Bush Plan President Bush's budget includes proposals to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for rural development, loan guarantees for small businesses, research on advanced technology, public housing and construction of the international space station. The cuts would affect programs at the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Energy and Transportation, as well as the Small Business Administration. In addition, Mr. Bush's budget shows that he wants to slow the growth of Medicare, slicing about 5 percent from the amounts that would be spent under current law in the coming decade. He did not say how he would achieve those savings, other than to promise that he would "modernize and reform Medicare," the health insurance program for 39 million people who are elderly or disabled. While Mr. Bush did propose a substantial increase in spending for the Education Department, Democrats said it was a much smaller increase than Congress approved for the current year. By the administration's reckoning, the department's budget would rise 11.5 percent, to $44.5 billion in 2002, compared with an increase of 35.7 percent this year. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/01/politics/01CUTS.html?pagewanted=all

Panel Calls for Reparations in Tulsa Race Riot "They came in the house with torches, and my mother hid us four wee children under the bed," Mr. Monroe said. "They set the curtains on fire and, as one guy was leaving, he stepped on my fingers. My little sister slapped her hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming out." "That's what I remember most, my little sister's hand slapped over my mouth." And as Mr. Monroe, now 84, watched the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921 deliver its final report at a news conference today � recommending that reparations be paid to survivors and their descendants � he was feeling stifled once again. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/01/national/01TULS.html?pagewanted=all

News Analysis: Bush Makes a Narrow Focus on a Few Signature Issues While Mr. Bush in his speech tonight talked about issues like rebuilding the military, encouraging charitable contributions and fighting rising energy prices and racial profiling, he stopped short of offering an array of new programs and mini- initiatives. He talked of a government that was "active but limited." Much the same could have been said of his speech. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/28/politics/28ASSE.html?pagewanted=all

What's His Pledge Really Worth

Bush Underlines Pledge About Social Security But, as Al Gore repeatedly pointed out during the campaign, Mr. Bush presented his plan as all gain and nopain, sidestepping the debate over whether restoring Social Security's health would require steps like cutting the guaranteed benefit, reducing cost of living increases for beneficiaries or raising the retirement age. Mr. Bush also remained quiet during the campaign, and again tonight, on how the government would pay for the creation of the private accounts. Analysts put the cost at $1 trillion over the next decade. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/28/politics/28POLI.html?pagewanted=all

But Yesterday, Before the Speech

The administration's budget anticipates paying down $2 trillion in public debt that matures no later than 2011 out of the part of the projected surplus coming from Social Security � about $2.5 trillion out of the total surplus of $5.6 trillion. The debt held by the public excludes $2.5 trillion the government owes to itself, largely in the form of promises to pay future Social Security benefits. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/27/politics/27BUDG.html?pagewanted=all

Wealthiest Pay Declining Share of Their Incomes in Taxes The richest Americans are paying a declining share of their incomes in taxes, even as their incomes grow more rapidly than everyone else's, according to data that the Internal Revenue Service gave a Republican member of Congress. The 1998 incomes, after taxes, of the top 1 percent of taxpayers increased at more than three times the rate of the bottom 90 percent, according to an analysis of this data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit research organization in Washington that seeks to advance the interests of the poor. Over a longer period, from 1989 to 1998, the incomes of the richest 1 percent, adjusted for inflation, grew about eight times as fast. But the share of their income they paid in federal taxes in 1998 was at its lowest level since 1992, the year before Congress added two higher tax brackets that apply only to top earners. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/26/business/26RICH.html?pagewanted=all

Millions Eligible for Food Stamps Aren't Applying "There is no reason that any American in 2001 should go hungry," said Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, who is chairman of the Agriculture Committee. "States should do everything possible to make certain that those who qualify for food stamps know it and are enrolled if they so choose. That was the intent of the law." Yet that has not happened in most states. Despite studies warning that bureaucratic hurdles discourage the poor from applying for food stamps, states have been wary of streamlining their application processes. A major reason, some critics say, is that states fear they will be penalized by the federal government for giving recipients too much in food stamps � or too little. In 1996, Arizona was fined $21 million because of the high number of errors its social workers made in calculating the size of benefits. Those complicated calculations are based on mandates drawn up by the Agriculture Department to deter fraud. But as a result, many states require the poor to fill out long applications and visit welfare offices every three months to make sure the benefits are correct. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/26/national/26FOOD.html?pagewanted=all

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

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

Malcolm X Conference Audio proceedings of the conference Malcolm X: Radical Tradition and Legacy of Struggle May 1990, Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York City http://www.murchisoncenter.org/malcolm/

Under orders from Congress, the I.R.S. is giving particular attention to returns filed by the working poor�

Rate of All I.R.S. Audits Falls; Poor Face Intense Scrutiny The chance of an individual tax return's being audited last year was less than one in 200, down from one in 112 in 1999 and one in 60 in 1996, new data and revised figures for last year show. Even those figures significantly overstate the risk of an audit for most taxpayers. That is because, under orders from Congress, the I.R.S. is giving particular attention to returns filed by the working poor who apply for a special tax credit. Such returns accounted for 44 percent of all audits. Among taxpayers who did not apply for that credit, the audit rate last year was just one in 370. For taxpayers who make more than $100,000, and who pay 62 percent of all individual income taxes, the audit rate last year was slightly less than one in 100, down from one in 50 in 1998 and down from one in 9 in 1988. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/16/business/16AUDI.html?pagewanted=ally

Dozens of Rich Americans Join in Fight to Retain the Estate Tax Some 120 wealthy Americans, including Warren E. Buffett, George Soros and the father of William H. Gates, are urging Congress not to repeal taxes on estates and gifts. President Bush has proposed phasing out those taxes by 2009. But a petition drive being organized here by Mr. Gates's father, William H. Gates Sr., argues that "repealing the estate tax would enrich the heirs of America's millionaires and billionaires while hurting families who struggle to make ends meet." The billions of dollars in government revenue lost "will inevitably be made up either by increasing taxes on those less able to pay or by cutting Social Security, Medicare, environmental protection and many other government programs so important to our nation's continued well-being," the petition says. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/politics/14ESTA.html?pagewanted=all

Medical Industry Lobbies to Rein In New Patients Privacy Rules Just weeks before far-reaching new rules to protect the privacy of people's medical records go into force, the health care industry is lobbying the Bush administration to delay, change or kill the regulations. Hospitals, insurance companies, health maintenance organizations and medical researchers said the rules, issued in the final weeks of the Clinton administration, would impose costly burdens. But members of Congress said the privacy protections, while they went further than many lawmakers expected when Congress asked to have them written, were immensely popular with consumers and would be hard to reverse at this point. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/politics/12PRIV.html?pagewanted=all

Some Fault Bush Tax Cuts for Lean Days in Texas While President Bush is lobbying Congress to pass his $1.6 trillion tax cut proposal in Washington, lawmakers in his home state are struggling with budget problems that some critics are tracing to tax cuts Mr. Bush passed here as governor. For the last week, state legislators have grown increasingly testy about budget projections showing that the state will have little, if any, money to spare. Lawmakers in both parties are talking of possible cutbacks after the projections showed that the state's once-healthy surplus might be nearly erased by budget overruns, particularly from health care costs like Medicaid. "There's no doubt in my mind that George W. Bush's tax cuts have put us in the situation we're in right now," said State Senator Mario Gallegos, a Houston Democrat who regularly criticized Mr. Bush in the presidential campaign. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/politics/12TEXA.html?pagewanted=all

Census Officials Ponder Adjustments Crucial to Redistricting Census officials have been tight- lipped about what the panel will recommend, though some experts have said they expect it to find that the net undercount in 2000 will be smaller than in 1990, when it was put at about 1.6 percent of the population. The experts suggested that fewer members of minorities, especially Hispanics and to a lesser extent blacks, were missed in 2000 than in 1990. But both of these trends may be overshadowed by a larger than expected number of people � mainly whites � who were counted twice. Census officials have been concerned for some time that last year's census may include a large overcount, perhaps even bigger than the more than four million people who were counted twice in 1990. Those who are counted twice tend to be children of divorced parents, college students living away from home whose parents list them on census forms and who also fill out census questionnaires on campus, and people with two homes who have received census forms in the mail at both of their dwellings. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/politics/12CENS.html?pagewanted=all

I'm Not Making This Up � Really!

Bush's Dubious Victory At Google It turns out that for the past three months, if you did a search on Google for a particularly insulting phrase -- think "dumb Oedipus" -- the top result was to the official George W. Bush campaign store. How on earth did this happen? http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/01/02-bush.html