Part III of WashPost series on Cheney

A Strong Push From Backstage

By Jo Becker and Barton Gellman
Washington Post

Air Force Two touched down at the Greenbrier Valley Airport in West Virginia on Feb. 6, 2003, carrying Vice President Cheney to the annual retreat of Republican House and Senate leaders. He had come to sell them on the economic centerpiece of President Bush's first term: a $674 billion tax cut.

When the president announced his economic package the day after this Cabinet meeting in January 2003, Cheney had one more thing to add. Corbis

Cheney had spent months making sure the package contained everything he wanted. One thing was missing.

The president had accepted Cheney's diagnosis that the sluggish economy needed a jolt, overruling senior economic advisers who forecast dangerous budget deficits. But Bush rejected one of Cheney's remedies: deep reductions in the capital gains tax on investments.

The vice president "was just hot on that," said Cesar Conda, then Cheney's domestic policy adviser. "It goes to show you: He wins and he loses, and he lost on that one."

Not for long.

(Continued here.)