{"id":3064,"date":"2004-11-22T10:59:37","date_gmt":"2004-11-22T15:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3064.html"},"modified":"2004-11-22T10:59:37","modified_gmt":"2004-11-22T15:59:37","slug":"jon-kyls-michael-kinsley-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/jon-kyls-michael-kinsley-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Kyl’s ‘Michael Kinsley Moment’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s hard not to love “Michael Kinsley moments,” in which a political figure commits a gaffe by telling the truth. The latest example comes by way of Sen. Jon Kyl<\/a> (R-Ariz.) on the issue of tax “reform.”<\/p>\n

“You can’t very well claim there was a mandate in this election for tax reform,” said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona. “It was just one of many ideas, and it wasn’t specific. There is no consensus in the country about what to do.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oops. That’s not Bush’s message at all. The president believes he absolutely has a mandate to pursue a specific agenda and near the top of the list<\/a> is tax “reform” (or as Bush calls it, tax “simplification”). It’s awfully convenient of Kyl to articulate one of the Dems’ primary responses to Bush’s drive to rewrite the tax code, but I don’t imagine Karl Rove will be pleased when he sees Kyl’s quote.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it points to a significant problem for the White House. Bush actually has a fairly limited vision for his second term’s domestic agenda. In terms of “big ticket” items, tax reform is right up there with Social Security privatization. Unfortunately, for the president, he’s the only one in DC who seems anxious to tackle the issue.<\/p>\n

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate’s top tax-writer, dismissed tax reform last week, equating it with “tilting at windmills<\/a>.” Bush’s Big Business allies are worried that the White House plan may end up doing “more harm than good<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

A solid NYT piece<\/a> today, meanwhile, fleshes out how even those who like the idea in principle disagree on virtually every detail.
\n
\nThe only aspect of the plan the White House has gotten behind publicly is the idea of radical curtailment on taxes on investments<\/a> — and even that is drawing opposition from the right.<\/p>\n

“People are not going to give the kind of support necessary for tax reform that leaves the investor class untaxed,” said Dr. Richard Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Commission. “That is not going to be politically viable.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, it’s not, especially as long as people like Land continue to agree with us on this.<\/p>\n

Getting back to Kyl’s comments, however, it seems this is the one issue that Bush is anxious to tackle that his Republican friends on the Hill just don’t have much interest in.<\/p>\n

“To what extent do you want to accomplish something that cannot be accomplished?” asked Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in a speech last week to the Tax Foundation, a business-backed research group. “You have to be realistic about what you can do and what you can’t do.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Many Republican lawmakers, especially those who on tax-writing committees, are skeptical about opening a Pandora’s box. “I don’t sense a great deal of excitement in the halls of the Senate,” said Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho. And Representative Thomas warned against pushing for more than “the system” in Congress can deliver.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Little support from Big Business, even less support among the electorate, skepticism from the far-right base, and a Republican Congress that wants to avoid the issue altogether. Tax “reform” is going to be a tough sell for Bush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s hard not to love “Michael Kinsley moments,” in which a political figure commits a gaffe by telling the truth. The latest example comes by way of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) on the issue of tax “reform.” “You can’t very well claim there was a mandate in this election for tax reform,” said Senator Jon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}