From the NY Times:
Oblivious in D.C.
By BOB HERBERT

"Of all the challenges we face, none is more troubling than the fact that thousands of Oregonians — many of them children — don't have enough to eat. Oregon has the highest hunger rate in the nation."

— Gov. Ted Kulongoski, in his
State of the State address.


Those who still believe that the policies of the Bush administration will set in motion some kind of renaissance in Iraq should take a look at what's happening to the quality of life for ordinary Americans here at home.

The president, buoyed by the bountiful patronage of the upper classes, seems indifferent to the increasingly harsh struggles of the working classes and the poor.

As Mr. Bush moves from fund-raiser to fund-raiser, building the mother of all campaign stockpiles, states from coast to coast are reaching depths of budget desperation unseen since the Great Depression. The disconnect here is becoming surreal. On Thursday the National Governors Association let it be known that the fiscal crisis that has crippled one state after another is worsening, not getting better.

Taxes have been raised. Services have been cut. And the rainy day funds accumulated in the 1990's have been consumed. If help does not materialize soon — in the form of assistance from the federal government or a sharp turnaround in the economy — some states will fall into a fiscal abyss.

That already seems to be happening in places like California, which has been driven to its knees by a two-year $38.8 billion budget gap, and Oregon, which has seen drastic cuts in public school services and the withholding of potentially life-saving medicine from seriously ill patients.

Most states have been unable to protect even the most fundamental services from damaging budget cuts.

"Few states have succeeded in exempting high-priority programs such as K-12 education, Medicaid, higher education, public safety or aid to cities and towns," according to the compilers of the Fiscal Survey of States, a report produced jointly by the governors' association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.

Scott Pattison, director of the budget officers' group, said, "If economic conditions remain stagnant or worsen, and if budget shortfalls continue next year, the states will have exhausted many of their options for countering a weak economy."

The budget crisis in California, where an unpopular Democratic governor is politically paralyzed and the Republicans in the State Legislature refuse to consider raising taxes, is potentially catastrophic.

Jack Kyser, a public policy economist in Los Angeles told The Associated Press: "People are nervous. There's a real chance for a meltdown that could have rippling effects throughout the nation. This is something of a different magnitude than we've seen before."

The governors' association called the fiscal survey the most accurate gauge of the health of state budgets. Its discouraging findings were released as the president was preparing a fund-raising swing that added millions more to his campaign stockpile, and as the Internal Revenue Service was reporting that the nation's richest taxpayers were accumulating an even greater share of the nation's wealth.

Some Americans are missing meals and going without their medicine, while others are enjoying a surge in already breathtaking levels of wealth. So what are we doing? We're cutting aid to the former while showering government largess on the latter.

There's a reason those campaign millions keep coming and coming and coming.

A Times article last week noted that the wealthiest 400 taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of all the income in the United States in 2000, "more than double their share just eight years earlier."

The influence of the wealthy has always been great, but it hasn't always been so cruel. Especially in the past six or seven decades there were many powerful political and civic leaders who looked out for the interests of the less fortunate and pressed their claims for treatment that was reasonably fair.

That's changed. The Bush juggernaut, at least for the time being, is rolling over everything that dares to get in its way. And fairness is not something it is concerned about.

From the NY Times:
Toward One-Party Rule
By PAUL KRUGMAN

In principle, Mexico's 1917 Constitution established a democratic political system. In practice, until very recently Mexico was a one-party state. While the ruling party employed intimidation and electoral fraud when necessary, mainly it kept control through patronage, cronyism and corruption. All powerful interest groups, including the media, were effectively part of the party's political machine.

Such systems aren't unknown here — think of Richard J. Daley's Chicago. But can it happen to the United States as a whole? A forthcoming article in The Washington Monthly shows that the foundations for one-party rule are being laid right now.

In "Welcome to the Machine," Nicholas Confessore draws together stories usually reported in isolation — from the drive to privatize Medicare, to the pro-tax-cut fliers General Motors and Verizon recently included with the dividend checks mailed to shareholders, to the pro-war rallies organized by Clear Channel radio stations. As he points out, these are symptoms of the emergence of an unprecedented national political machine, one that is well on track to establishing one-party rule in America.

Mr. Confessore starts by describing the weekly meetings in which Senator Rick Santorum vets the hiring decisions of major lobbyists. These meetings are the culmination of Grover Norquist's "K Street Project," which places Republican activists in high-level corporate and industry lobbyist jobs — and excludes Democrats. According to yesterday's Washington Post, a Republican National Committee official recently boasted that "33 of 36 top-level Washington positions he is monitoring went to Republicans."

Of course, interest groups want to curry favor with the party that controls Congress and the White House; but as The Washington Post explains, Mr. Santorum's colleagues have also used "intimidation and private threats" to bully lobbyists who try to maintain good relations with both parties. "If you want to play in our revolution," Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, once declared, "you have to live by our rules."

Lobbying jobs are a major source of patronage — a reward for the loyal. More important, however, many lobbyists now owe their primary loyalty to the party, rather than to the industries they represent. So corporate cash, once split more or less evenly between the parties, increasingly flows in only one direction.

And corporations themselves are also increasingly part of the party machine. They are rewarded with policies that increase their profits: deregulation, privatization of government services, elimination of environmental rules. In return, like G.M. and Verizon, they use their influence to support the ruling party's agenda.

As a result, campaign finance is only the tip of the iceberg. Next year, George W. Bush will spend two or three times as much money as his opponent; but he will also benefit hugely from the indirect support that corporate interests — very much including media companies — will provide for his political message.

Naturally, Republican politicians deny the existence of their burgeoning machine. "It never ceases to amaze me that people are so cynical they want to tie money to issues, money to bills, money to amendments," says Mr. DeLay. And Ari Fleischer says that "I think that the amount of money that candidates raise in our democracy is a reflection of the amount of support they have around the country." Enough said.

Mr. Confessore suggests that we may be heading for a replay of the McKinley era, in which the nation was governed by and for big business. I think he's actually understating his case: like Mr. DeLay, Republican leaders often talk of "revolution," and we should take them at their word.

Why isn't the ongoing transformation of U.S. politics — which may well put an end to serious two-party competition — getting more attention? Most pundits, to the extent they acknowledge that anything is happening, downplay its importance. For example, last year an article in Business Week titled "The GOP's Wacky War on Dem Lobbyists" dismissed the K Street Project as "silly — and downright futile." In fact, the project is well on the way to achieving its goals.

Whatever the reason, there's a strange disconnect between most political commentary and the reality of the 2004 election. As in 2000, pundits focus mainly on images — John Kerry's furrowed brow, Mr. Bush in a flight suit — or on supposed personality traits. But it's the nexus of money and patronage that may well make the election a foregone conclusion.

From the NY Times:
Tax Cut Casualties
By BOB HERBERT

The juxtaposition was perfect.

On Monday, the same day that President Bush was raking in $4 million and touting his tax cuts at a Manhattan fund-raiser, the trustees of the City University of New York met to formally approve the largest tuition hike in the school's history.

This is how it is in the United States these days, massive tax cuts for the very wealthy at the same time that the poor and working classes are being clobbered by reduced services and myriad tax increases of one kind or another.

For the students at CUNY, who have traditionally come from poorer backgrounds, a tuition hike — in this case $800 a year — is the equivalent of a tax increase. And it can be devastating.

"A lot of students will drop out," said Lev Sviridov, president of the undergraduate student government at City College. "CUNY estimates — and I think it's a low estimate — that 60 percent of the students come from households that make $30,000 or less."

At City College, which is part of the CUNY system, it's believed that most of the students come from households earning less than $25,000.

Students who are working their way through CUNY (and youngsters in similar situations around the country) deserve as much support as we can give them as they try to distance themselves from the many evils associated with poverty and an inadequate education. Instead we're pushing some of them out of college.

Crystal Welch, a student at Hunter College, spoke this week of a friend who has already decided that she can't afford the tuition hike. She's leaving, said Ms. Welch, "and she was a year away from graduating."

Ms. Welch, a teacher's aide, is struggling herself, relying on student loans to see her through. "I have no clue how I'm going to pay it all back," she said. "I have no clue at all."

There was a time when it was normal for politicians to pay at least some attention to the needs and the longings of middle- and working-class Americans, and the poor. That is how we managed to get (despite conservative opposition) such vital programs as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, college loans, environmental protections and so forth.

But now the related problems of a tanking economy and the hijacking of federal government assets by the people at the top of the economic pyramid have left little for distressed state and local governments to draw upon for short-term sustenance or long-term recovery. Which is just another way of saying there's very little left for ordinary Americans.

A recent announcement to students at Baruch College, which is where the CUNY trustees met to hike the tuition, said, "As you know, the New York State Legislature has passed a budget for next year that, due to current and projected shortfalls in state tax revenues, contains significant cuts in education funding."

So it's too bad, kids, but this is the new American reality. You'd be getting a windfall if you were one of the high rollers at Bechtel or Halliburton. The game is rigged in their favor. But all you want to do is get a decent education so you can make something of yourself. We can't help you with that.

While the president has been trumpeting his federal tax cuts, 57 of the 62 counties in the state of New York have raised property taxes. Ten counties have raised sales taxes. Another 35 are trying to, but have come up against statutory limits. Some are pleading for permission to break through those limits.

In New York City, which includes five of the state's counties, the situation is dire. Residents have been hit with the largest fare increase in history (yes, that's another tax hike), the largest property tax increase in history, an increase in the sales tax and an increase in the top rate on income taxes. Even water fees are going up.

And, of course, it's not just New York City and New York State. California might as well throw its budget into the Pacific. And Oregon is a fiscal basket case.

The CUNY students who will have to shoulder a heavier tuition load next year are part of a broad mass of Americans who are going backward rather than forward, and who are not being helped in the least by the obsession in Washington with tax cuts.

From the NY Times:
The Money Magnet
By BOB HERBERT

It's a great time to be George W. Bush.

The president will waltz into Manhattan today for another $2,000-a-plate fund-raiser, the latest stop on his fabulously successful dining-for-dollars tour. These are fun events at which the fat cats throw millions of dollars at the president to reinforce their already impenetrable ring of influence around the national government.

Mr. Bush is expected to pull in $5 million at this evening's sit-down, and may ultimately raise an astonishing quarter of a billion dollars for his re-election bid. During a brief stop Friday at a reception in Greensboro, Ga., where he picked up a quick $2.2 million, the president happily told his supporters, "You put the wind at my back."

I'm sure there's no connection between fat-cat fund-raising and, say, federal tax policy. But there was some particularly interesting information about the Bush tax cuts in an article yesterday by The Times's David E. Rosenbaum. Citing data from a study by Citizens for Tax Justice, Mr. Rosenbaum pointed out that the richest 1 percent of Americans will get an average tax reduction of nearly $100,000 a year, while "the tax relief most people will receive is quite meager."

Half of all taxpayers will get a cut of less than $100 this year. By 2005, three-quarters will get less than $100.

The middle class and working people don't seem to mind that they've been blithely left behind. Mr. Bush's approval ratings are way high, so high they've got the terminally timid Democrats scared to death to confront the president head on. The man who elbowed his way into the White House with a minority of the popular vote is on a roll.

But while these may be the best of times for George W., this is not such a great moment for America.

Start anywhere. Tax cuts? Mr. Bush has behaved like a profligate parent who spends every dollar the family has accumulated, mortgages everything the family owns and maxes out every credit card he can get his hands on. At some point in this scenario the children and grandchildren will be left with nothing but a mountain of debt.

Jobs? More than three million private-sector jobs have been lost on this president's watch. People are staying out of work longer and the pay gains of the late 90's are being eroded. Time Magazine recently asked, "Why are American workers dying the death of a thousand pay cuts?"

Government services? Prepare to wave goodbye to Medicare and Social Security as you've known them. Right wingers have always wanted to cripple the government's social service programs and now they are racing toward achievement of that poisonous goal. With the president's tax cuts bankrupting the government, there will be no money left for meaningful support of even the most popular social programs.

The environment? Among other things, the Bush White House does not like global warming. So it just edits out, eliminates, erases important references to it in official government documents. Gas-guzzling S.U.V.'s are good. But in the Bush II White House, global warming as most scientists know it doesn't even exist.

We've got some waking up to do.

A budget catastrophe is hammering state and local governments across the country, driving up taxes and fees, and driving out important government services. This story is still not getting the attention it deserves. Some public school districts have had to shorten the school year because they ran out of money. In some areas medical services to seriously ill individuals are being curtailed. In some jurisdictions, criminal offenders are being released from prison early, and some criminal laws are not being enforced because of a lack of funds.

Because of cuts in the police budget, station houses in Portland, Ore., now close at night.

These are not topics that will be explored in depth at this evening's presidential fund-raiser. And you can bet that there will not be any straight talk about the quagmire we are sinking into in Iraq, or the outlandish deceptions that the president employed to get us in there.

No, this will be a fun evening filled with the sound of joyous plutocratic laughter. Mr. Bush will leave with his pockets bulging and the wind at his back. The reality of life in George Bush's America for working men and women, and for the poor, will be left for others to attend to, presumably in some post-Bush administration.

Dereliction of Duty
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last Thursday a House subcommittee met to finalize next year's homeland security appropriation. The ranking Democrat announced that he would introduce an amendment adding roughly $1 billion for areas like port security and border security that, according to just about every expert, have been severely neglected since Sept. 11. He proposed to pay for the additions by slightly scaling back tax cuts for people making more than $1 million per year.

The subcommittee's chairman promptly closed the meeting to the public, citing national security — though no classified material was under discussion. And the bill that emerged from the closed meeting did not contain the extra funding.

It was a perfect symbol of the reality of the Bush administration's "war on terror." Behind the rhetoric — and behind the veil of secrecy, invoked in the name of national security but actually used to prevent public scrutiny — lies a pattern of neglect, of refusal to take crucial actions to protect us from terrorists. Actual counterterrorism, it seems, doesn't fit the administration's agenda.

Yesterday The Washington Post printed an interview with Rand Beers, a top White House counterterrorism adviser who resigned in March. "They're making us less secure, not more secure," he said of the Bush administration. "As an insider, I saw the things that weren't being done." Among the problem areas he cited were homeland security, where he says the administration has "only a rhetorical policy"; failure to press Saudi Arabia (the home of most of the Sept. 11 terrorists) to take action; and, of course, the way we allowed Afghanistan to relapse into chaos.

Some of this pattern of neglect involves penny-pinching. Back in February, even George W. Bush in effect admitted that not enough money had been allocated to domestic security — though (to the fury of Republican legislators) he blamed Congress. Yet according to Fred Kaplan in Slate, the administration's latest budget proposal for homeland security actually contains less money than was spent last year. Meanwhile, urgent priorities remain unmet. For example, port security, identified as a top concern from the very beginning, has so far received only one-tenth as much money as the Coast Guard says is needed.

But it's not just a matter of money. For one thing, it's hard to claim now that the Bush administration is trying to hold down domestic spending to make room for tax cuts. With the budget deficit projected at more than $400 billion this year, a few billion more for homeland security wouldn't make much difference to the tax-cutting agenda. Moreover, Congress isn't pinching pennies across the board: last week the Senate voted to provide $15 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of nuclear power plants.

Furthermore, even on the military front the administration has been weirdly reluctant to come to grips with terrorism. It refused to provide Afghanistan's new government with an adequate security umbrella, with the predictable result that warlords are running rampant and the Taliban are making a comeback. The squandered victory in Afghanistan was one reason people like myself had a bad feeling about the invasion of Iraq — and sure enough, the administration was bizarrely lackadaisical about providing postwar security. Even nuclear waste dumps were left unguarded for weeks.

So what's the explanation? The answer, one suspects, is that key figures — above all, Donald Rumsfeld — just didn't feel like dealing with the real problem. Real counterterrorism mainly involves police work and precautionary measures; it doesn't look impressive on TV, and it doesn't provide many occasions for victory celebrations.

A conventional war, on the other hand, is a lot more fun: you get stirring pictures of tanks rolling across the desert, and you get to do a victory landing on an aircraft carrier. And more and more it seems that that was what the war was all about. After all, the supposed reasons for fighting that war have turned out to be false — there were no links to Al Qaeda, there wasn't a big arsenal of W.M.D.'s.

But never mind — we won, didn't we? Maybe not. About half of the U.S. Army's combat strength is now tied down in Iraq, facing what looks increasingly like a guerrilla war — and like a perfect recruiting device for Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, the real war on terror has been neglected, and we've antagonized the allies we need to fight that war. One of these days we'll end up paying the price.

From the NY Times:
Cozy With the F.C.C.
By BOB HERBERT

The latest government giveaway to big business came Monday when the Federal Communications Commission eased a number of media ownership restrictions that had been designed to enhance competition, foster independence and provide the public with a wider variety of views and perspectives across the media landscape.

What we will get instead is a further consolidation of news and entertainment outlets under the control of a handful of giant corporations. The assets and the tremendous power of these media biggies were enhanced — and the interests of the viewing, listening and reading public were eroded — by the controversial 3-to-2 vote of the F.C.C. commissioners.

This was, understandably, a big story.

Not so widely covered was an interesting and enlightening study by the Center for Public Integrity on the "cozy" relationship between F.C.C. officials and the telecommunications and broadcasting industries they are supposed to be regulating.

The center examined the travel records of F.C.C. employees and found that over the last eight years, commissioners and staff members have taken 2,500 trips costing $2.8 million that were "primarily" paid for by members of the telecommunications and broadcast industries.

Can you say conflict of interest? Can you imagine how maybe — just maybe — the interests of ordinary men and women, who don't have the money or the entree to lobby the F.C.C. and entertain its staffers, could be overlooked? How about trampled?

"This shows us just how close, how incestuous, the industry and its regulating agency are," said Charles Lewis, the center's executive director.

According to the study:

"The top destination was Las Vegas, with 330 trips. Second was New Orleans, with 173 trips. And third was New York, with 102 trips." Other "popular" destinations were London (98 trips), San Francisco, Palm Springs, Buenos Aires and Beijing.

I wish I could tell you this was unusual. But the fact is that many government agencies accept millions of dollars annually from industries and other special interests for trips to meetings, conferences, retreats, whatever. The government beneficiaries of this largess are frequently wined and dined in luxurious settings. They network. They party. And they will tell you they are not influenced at all by this wonderful treatment.

The F.C.C. is overridden — "like locusts, really" said Mr. Lewis — by lobbyists and top industry executives. Control of the nation's airwaves, which is the most direct and effective way of controlling how we think and feel and vote and spend our cash, is one of the great prizes America has to offer. Each opportunity to grab additional control is seized upon ferociously by the big media honchos.

The Center for Public Integrity reported that there were more than 70 closed-door meetings in recent months between F.C.C. officials and representatives of the nation's top broadcasters, including very powerful chief executives, to discuss the relaxation of media ownership restrictions, the key issue that was voted on Monday.

The two major groups that represented the public on this issue were Consumers Union and the Media Access Project. Representatives of those groups met just five times with F.C.C. officials.

A particularly revealing moment occurred Sunday, the day before the vote, on the ABC program "This Week." During an interview with F.C.C. chairman, Michael Powell, the moderator, George Stephanopoulos, noted that a survey of 500,000 comments on the F.C.C. Web site showed that more than 97 percent "were opposed to the new rules."

"Doesn't that make you wonder," Mr. Stephanopoulos asked, "whether you might be misreading the public interest here?"

Mr. Powell said he didn't think so. He said the F.C.C. had "taken those comments into deep consideration." He even said, "I think that they're valid."

Oh?

"But unfortunately," said Mr. Powell, "as you can understand, most of the comments are `I'm not for consolidation.' Well, Mike Powell is not for consolidation either. But that is not the specific task we have before us."

You can understand that, can't you?

From The Onion:
Bush Visits USS Truman For Dramatic Veterans'-Benefits-Cutting Ceremony

NORFOLK, VA—With more than 5,400 jubilant Marines and sailors cheering him on, President Bush landed on the deck of the U.S.S. Harry S Truman in a Navy jet Monday to preside over a historic veterans'-benefits-cutting ceremony.

"Your brave and selfless service to your country will not soon be forgotten," Bush told the recently returned Operation Iraqi Freedom soldiers. "At least, not for another five or ten years."

After congratulating the soldiers on their victory over Saddam Hussein, Bush announced that the new budget passed by the Senate includes a $14.6 billion reduction in veterans' benefits. He then held aloft a pair of oversized scissors and snipped a ribbon bearing the words "Veteran's Benefits."

"No one knows the meaning of the word 'sacrifice' quite like our men and women in uniform," Bush said. "Whether sacrificing their lives or their health coverage, these brave Americans are willing to do whatever it takes to help this nation, and for this I salute them."

As the ship lay at anchor in the Atlantic Ocean, Bush, holding a helmet emblazoned with "Prez-1" along the side, expressed his gratitude to the troops for the hardships they endured in the Persian Gulf, and for the hardships they would be enduring at home in the future.

"When I look at the members of the United States military, I see the best of our country, and I am honored to be your Commander-In-Chief," Bush said. "I am equally honored that you are stoically accepting Congress' elimination of a large percentage of the benefits you were promised upon enlisting so that I can finance a massive tax cut."

The speech was brought to a temporary halt as the troops' enthusiastic cheers drowned out the public-address system. Bush then raised his hands to silence the crowd, his face turning somber.

"You have shown the world the skill and might of the American armed forces," Bush said. "You have exhibited a willingness to do what your country has asked of you. In return, I would like to personally show my gratitude by guaranteeing that your pension will not completely dry up until you turn 40."

As a ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, Bush explained that the cuts were necessary to ensure that the servicemen who received aid were those who really needed it and not the parasites looking to take advantage of a bloated bureaucracy and veterans' welfare state.

"This is a battle to root out waste in the dispensation of veterans' funds," Bush said. "And, as you know all too well, casualties are inevitable in a battle. If some of you are cut off from compensation payments for injuries, take comfort in the knowledge that your sacrifice was not in vain, for you have helped liberate billions of tax dollars for our country's taxpayers."

Upon the conclusion of the president's speech, the troops once again rose to thunderous applause. After posing for photographs with various officers and enlisted men on board, the president returned to his jet and departed.

Reactions to the speech were overwhelmingly positive.

"We all stand behind our Commander-In-Chief," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Henry Williams, 23, of Norfolk, VA. "When he started this war, President Bush called upon Americans to support its troops. Now, he's calling upon his troops to accept six-month waits for hospital visits and pauper's funerals. In these times of economic crisis and uncertainty, it is our duty to stand behind our president, whether or not he is standing behind us."

From the NY Times:
The Reverse Robin Hood
By BOB HERBERT

If you wanted a quintessential example of what the Bush administration and its legislative cronies are about, it was right there on the front page of The Times last Thursday:

"Tax Law Omits $400 Child Credit for Millions."

The fat cats will get their tax cuts. But in the new American plutocracy, there won't even be crumbs left over for the working folks at the bottom of the pyramid to scramble after.

When House and Senate negotiators met to put the finishing touches to President Bush's tax bill, they coldly deleted a provision that would have allowed millions of low-income working families to benefit from the bill's increased child tax credit.

It was a mean-spirited and wholly unnecessary act, a clear display of the current regime's outright hostility toward America's poor and working classes.

The negotiators eliminated a provision in the Senate version of the tax bill that would have extended benefits from the child tax credit to families with incomes between $10,500 and $26,625. This is not a small group. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the families that would have benefited include about 12 million children — one of every six kids in the U.S. under the age of 17.

While the tax bill will lavish hundreds of billions of dollars in benefits on people higher up the income scale, it leaves this group of working families very ignominiously behind.

And readers of yesterday's Times learned that another group of some eight million mostly low-income taxpayers — primarily single people without children — will also be left behind, getting no benefit at all from the president's tax cuts. Forget about trickle-down. The goal of this administration is to haul it up.

The provision to extend the tax credit to more low-income families was the work of Senator Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat who noted that half of all taxpayers in her state had adjusted gross incomes of less than $20,000. The full Senate approved the provision, but the negotiators knocked it out at the last minute, behind closed doors.

While the most well-heeled Americans are happily inflating their bankrolls, there are families with a total of 16 million children at the low end of the income scale who, for one reason or another, won't get the help they should — their fair share — from this tax bill. About half of all African-American and Latino children get no benefit — or only a partial benefit — from the child tax credit, according to the Children's Defense Fund and an advocacy group called the Children's Research and Education Institute.

When the whistles were blown on the child-tax-credit outrage, Republican leaders were unable to give a coherent explanation for their action. Some tried to argue that they had to scrap the provision to keep the total cost of the tax bill from exceeding $350 billion over 10 years, their agreed-upon limit.

That was not true. For one thing, the $350 billion limit was a completely arbitrary and largely fictional figure. The true cost of the tax bill over 10 years will be closer to a trillion dollars than the deliberately deceptive $350 billion figure that the G.O.P. has chosen to use.

Senator Lincoln's provision, which would have offered a little help to so many people who need it, would have cost only $3.5 billion. Even within the phony $350 billion limit, a slight adjustment in a number of different windfalls for the very wealthy would have opened up sufficient room for this modest tax break.

But to really get a sense of the scandalous nature of this G.O.P. tax-cut scam, consider that the House and Senate negotiators also got rid of a number of measures in the Senate bill that would have saved billions of dollars by closing abusive corporate tax structures. The Center on Budget noted the following:

"As the Washington Post has reported, the Senate bill `included provisions to crack down on abusive corporate tax shelters, combat some accounting scams such as those pursued by Enron Corp., prevent U.S. companies from moving their headquarters to post office boxes in offshore tax havens such as Bermuda and limit grossly inflated deferred compensation plans for corporate executives.' "

The savings from those provisions would have been about $25 billion, much more than enough to cover the cost of Senator Lincoln's $3.5 billion attempt to give a bit of a break to several million working families.