[11-2-01]

The picture looks even worse now, as reflected in a recent analysis by Gretchen Morgenson in the New York Times. She notes that in the $100 billion tax-cut bill narrowly passed by the House this week and sent to the Senate "just 30 percent of the proposed tax relief would go to individuals, with the rest helping corporations, including large, prosperous ones like I.B.M. and General Electric, which have done well even in the economic downturn." And it is "far from certain" how much this package would do to boost capital spending by business - which is supposedly the reason for the whole thing.

Morgenson quotes Charles Gabriel, senior Washington analyst at Prudential Securities, as saying that the House bill's emphasis on benefits for corporations is "political payback of sorts, ... [because] to get his tax cut through earlier this year, Bush had to sedate the K street lobbyists, telling them, `Don't worry, there will be another bill coming through.' Now you've got another green light for a tax bill, and there's a presumption that it will be skewed toward corporate tax cuts."

If you want to say something about this to your congressional legislators, you might check on the site called MoveOn, which aims at "help[ing] busy people be effective citizens. MoveOn is committed to broadening participation to counter the influence of monied interests and partisan extremes."

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