Opposition Builds to Spending Cuts in Bush's Budget The White House says the cuts are needed to put federal spending on a more sustainable path after several years of rapid growth. But some members of Congress from both parties have objected that the cuts are compelled mainly to pay for the large tax cuts Mr. Bush has been seeking. Mr. Bush says he can save billions of dollars by reducing "corporate subsidies," eliminating "duplicative and ineffective programs" and wiping out pork barrel projects approved at the behest of individual lawmakers. But the reality is often more complex than the White House suggests. The National Association of Children's Hospitals and the American Academy of Pediatrics have joined members of Congress trying to prevent cuts in children's programs. The administration wants to trim $35 million from a $235 million program for training doctors at children's hospitals. The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials is fighting other proposed cuts, including one to slice $700 million from a program for construction and repair of public housing. Congress provided $3 billion for the public housing capital fund last year. Likewise, a wide range of businesses are scrambling to protect the Export-Import Bank from cuts that will be proposed by Mr. Bush. Defenders of the bank include the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and exporters of all sizes. Mr. Bush is expected to propose a 24 percent reduction in the bank's budget, below the current level of $927 million. Representative Jim Kolbe, the Arizona Republican who is chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee responsible for the bank, said, "We need to be expanding, not reducing, the amount the bank gets." Mr. Bush will also propose eliminating federal subsidies for loans made under the main lending program of the Small Business Administration. He would raise fees charged to borrowers and to lenders. Mr. Bush also plans to reduce the budget for one of President Bill Clinton's favorite programs, Community Oriented Policing Services, to $855 million next year, from $1 billion this year, administration officials said. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said this would be a serious mistake, "a misguided retreat from our commitment to keep crime down." Mr. Bush wants to save $25 million by eliminating a disaster preparedness program known as Project Impact. He said the program, run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, "has not proved effective." Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, has won support from the Senate for her efforts to save the program, which shores up buildings to minimize damage. The project, Ms. Murray said, saved lives in the earthquake that jolted the Pacific Northwest on Feb. 28. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/09/politics/09BUDG.html?pagewanted=all

Fears on Privacy Law Spur Warning by Armey � to help business evade regulation and to prevent House Republicans from trying to bring new privacy bills forward. Few issues have risen to prominence as quickly as privacy. As Americans have gone online by the millions, they have become increasingly concerned over ways that their digital footprints can be traced, especially by companies that use personal data for marketing. The Federal Trade Commission recommended that Congress legislate privacy standards for Web sites, and a number of lawmakers have filed bills intended to fill in the patchwork of privacy laws on the books. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/09/technology/09PRIV.html?pagewanted=all

Focus on Farms Masks Estate Tax Confusion Harlyn Riekena worried that his success would cost him when he died. Thirty-seven years ago he quit teaching to farm and over the years bought more and more of the rich black soil here in central Iowa. Now he and his wife, Karen, own 950 gently rolling acres planted in soybeans and corn. The farmland alone is worth more than $2.5 million, and so Mr. Riekena, 61, fretted that estate taxes would take a big chunk of his three grown daughters' inheritance.

Almost no working farmers do, according to data from an Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1999 returns that has not yet been published.

That might seem a reasonable assumption, what with all the talk in Washington about the need to repeal the estate tax to save the family farm. "To keep farms in the family, we are going to get rid of the death tax," President Bush vowed a month ago; he and many others have made the point repeatedly. But in fact the Riekenas will owe nothing in estate taxes. Almost no working farmers do, according to data from an Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1999 returns that has not yet been published. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/08/business/08ESTA.html?pagewanted=all

Bush Budget on Health Care Would Cut Aid to Uninsured Budget documents from the Department of Health and Human Services show that these programs, providing "health care access for the uninsured," would be reduced 86 percent, to $20 million, from $140 million in the current fiscal year. The programs received $40 million in 2000. So far the White House has not disclosed many details of Mr. Bush's budget, which would cut taxes by $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years. But today's disclosure provides the second example of significant cuts in domestic programs. Earlier, administration officials acknowledged that the budget would include cuts in some programs for children and children's hospitals. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/04/politics/04HEAL.html?pagewanted=all

BW Online | March 15, 2001 | Coming Soon, the Smaller Business Administration President Bush's proposed budget would slash outlays to the Small Business Administration by a huge 40% -- and a good chunk of the shortfall will be borne by the SBA's clientele: small companies in need of loans. Under the Administration's plan, the SBA would get approximately $539 million next year, down from this year's $899 million. But the agency doesn't sound terribly concerned. "There are substantial savings to be found in the SBA's programs that allow us to operate with a lower appropriation, but at the same level," of services as last year, says SBA spokesman Mike Stamler. "We're on board." Why so sanguine? Some cost savings -- about $74 million worth -- can be found by eliminating programs that have been declared redundant. These include the New Markets Venture Capital Initiative, which was designed to help bring venture capital to small companies in low-income areas; BusinessLINC, a mentoring program that aims to bring together small and large companies; and Prime, a technical-assistance program for disadvantaged entrepreneurs. The big money to compensate for the budget shortfall -- $235 million -- will come from fee hikes. The 7(a) loan program will collect an additional $114.7 million by raising the guarantee fee paid by borrowers by half a percentage point on loans over $150,000. On loans for amounts between $150,000 and $700,000, borrowers will now pay a 3.5% guarantee fee, up from 3%. For larger loans, the fee goes to 4% from 3.5%. http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/mar2001/sb20010315_323.htm

Bush's Budget Would Cut 3 Programs to Aid Children President Bush intends next month to propose cuts in programs to provide child care, to prevent child abuse and to train doctors at children's hospitals, administration officials said today. State officials contend that stable child care for low-income families has been a major ingredient of successful programs to move people from welfare to work. Congress provided $2 billion last year for the Child Care and Development Block Grant. That included an increase of $817 million, or 69 percent, so that states could provide day care to 241,000 additional children. Budget documents from the Department of Health and Human Services show that Mr. Bush plans to cut child care grants by $200 million, to $1.8 billion, as part of the budget he will send Congress early next month. The documents also show that spending for programs dealing with child abuse would be reduced by $15.7 million, or 18 percent. That would leave $71.8 million for federal grants to the states to prevent and investigate child abuse and neglect. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/23/politics/23SPEN.html?pagewanted=all

News Analysis: Bush Faces Quandaries of Economy and Energy Under the proposal he sent to Congress just a few weeks ago, there was no tax cut for the current year at all, a fact that seemed to undercut the president's repeated claim that the combination of the Fed's rate cuts and his own tax plan would pull the country out of what appears to be a cyclical downturn. Even the cut passed by the House earlier this month � and heartily endorsed by the White House � provides only $5.6 billion in tax relief this year. In a $10 trillion economy, that is, in the words of Robert Litan, an economist at the Brookings Institution, "something so tiny that you won't even notice it." On that point, Democrats and Republicans seem to agree. But each side is using that fact to bolster the case for substantial change in Mr. Bush's plan. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/21/politics/21ASSE.html?pagewanted=all

Washington Memo: For Bush, a Chronicle of Bad News Foretold Normally, presidents are cheerleaders for the nation's economy. On Oct. 19, 1987, the day the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 508 points, or 22.6 percent, President Ronald Reagan said the historic fall was simply investors taking profits. The next day, he blamed Democrats in Congress. The day after that, Mr. Reagan proclaimed that the crisis "appears to be over." In 1991, when the economy was last in a recession, President George Bush told Congress in his State of the Union address that there were "reasons to be optimistic about our economy." He predicted, accurately, that "we will get on our way to a new record of expansion and achieve the competitive strength that will carry us into the next American century." For President Bill Clinton, touting the economy posed no problem, since he presided over a period of unremittingly good economic news. Now comes George W. Bush, who is presenting what an analysis in The Financial Times last week called "the novel spectacle" of a president "urging citizens to ignore good economic news and focus on the bad." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/politics/19MEMO.html?pagewanted=all

A Bill to Wall Off Medicare Revenue Fails In a preview of what is likely to be a recurring budget battle this year, the Senate today blocked an attempt by Democrats to restrict Congress's use of surplus Medicare revenues for a tax cut or general government spending. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/14/politics/14MEDI.html?pagewanted=all

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