Senate Debate Looms on Tax Cuts for Rich
By JACKIE CALMES
NYT
WASHINGTON — Senate leaders said Wednesday that debate would most likely begin in September over whether to let the Bush income tax cuts for the rich expire at the end of this year as scheduled, setting up a new battle just weeks before the midterm elections.
Nervousness among politically vulnerable Democrats had led some in the party to predict that Congress would not take up the issue until after the elections, in a lame-duck session. But partisan lines have already been forming. Republicans, emboldened by President Obama’s slipping support in the polls, charge that Democrats are advocating a big tax increase; Democrats counter that Republicans are shilling for the wealthy and driving up the national debt.
Mr. Obama, in a speech to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. executive committee, alluded to the issue in reviewing his administration’s efforts to emerge from what he called “the hole” Republicans dug in the Bush years. Advisers said he would engage more fully when Congress turns to the issue.
For now it is Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner who has emerged as the point man in the administration’s offensive to let the high-end tax cuts expire and extend those for the middle class.
(More here.)
NYT
WASHINGTON — Senate leaders said Wednesday that debate would most likely begin in September over whether to let the Bush income tax cuts for the rich expire at the end of this year as scheduled, setting up a new battle just weeks before the midterm elections.
Nervousness among politically vulnerable Democrats had led some in the party to predict that Congress would not take up the issue until after the elections, in a lame-duck session. But partisan lines have already been forming. Republicans, emboldened by President Obama’s slipping support in the polls, charge that Democrats are advocating a big tax increase; Democrats counter that Republicans are shilling for the wealthy and driving up the national debt.
Mr. Obama, in a speech to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. executive committee, alluded to the issue in reviewing his administration’s efforts to emerge from what he called “the hole” Republicans dug in the Bush years. Advisers said he would engage more fully when Congress turns to the issue.
For now it is Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner who has emerged as the point man in the administration’s offensive to let the high-end tax cuts expire and extend those for the middle class.
(More here.)
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