WSJ: House Leaders Risk a Backlash By Moderates Against Tax Cuts

[question everything]

House Leaders Risk a Backlash By Moderates Against Tax Cuts

By DAVID ROGERS and BRODY MULLINS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 3, 2005; Page A2

WASHINGTON -- Courting restive conservatives with budget cuts, House Republican leaders risk a backlash from moderates that could endanger the extension of President Bush's lower 15% rate for dividends and capital gains.

The House Budget Committee takes up the $53.9 billion five-year deficit-reduction package today amid growing discomfort with provisions opening up the Arctic for oil drilling and requiring scaled-back funding for child care, Medicaid and nutrition benefits for the working poor.

Those affected are often the same households -- just above the poverty line -- that Republicans have prided themselves on helping in the past. Moderates worry that the party is risking these social gains while proposing to extend tax breaks that favor the wealthy. The 15% rates run through 2008, but as a signal to Wall Street, President Bush and most Republicans would like to continue them through a $70 billion five-year tax package to be acted on after the deficit-reduction bill.

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Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R., Texas) said moderates were wrong to think the larger deficit bill is only to appease the right. "This is Republican principles," he said. If a family of four earning $26,000 will have to pay $1,200 to $1,300 a year in Medicaid co-payments, "It's a good deal," he said. "It's a better deal than you're getting out in the private market, for sure."

Write to David Rogers at [e-mail] and Brody Mullins at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113097553214386814.html (subscription)

[baltlib]

1. not trying to agree with

him, but i would have to pay 640 a month for family ins thru work, although right now i only have to pay 240 a month for my wife.

[question everything]

2. What was news to me is this part:

Those affected are often the same households -- just above the poverty line -- that Republicans have prided themselves on helping in the past.