Bush Tax Cuts Under Fire
 

     Are Bush's tax cuts in trouble? The Times trumpets the possibility in Thursday's lead story by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David Kirkpatrick, "G.O.P. Senators Balk At Tax Cuts In Bush's Budget."

     They begin: "President Bush's plan to extend his tax cuts over the next five years ran into resistance in the Senate on Wednesday as Republican leaders offered a budget for 2006 that would undo more than a fourth of the cuts that Mr. Bush has requested. Uneasy about the potential impact on the ballooning federal deficit, the Senate Republicans called for $70.2 billion in tax cuts over the next five years, as opposed to the estimated $100 billion the White House is seeking."

     More trouble: "The Senate's proposal to scale back the extension of Mr. Bush's tax cuts comes at a time when Republicans are also feeling queasy about the White House's major domestic policy initiative for the year, overhauling Social Security. And the budget was not enough to mollify some Senate Republican moderates, who expressed concern Wednesday about extending the tax cuts at a time when the deficit is at a record high and domestic programs from farm subsidies to veterans' benefits and education are facing steep cuts."

     (Go here for more on those purported "steep cuts" in domestic programs.)

     The Republicans can't win, blamed both for those "steep cuts" and for failing to cut the deficit: "Democrats in both the House and the Senate derided the Republicans' budget as unsustainable and fiscally reckless. They said the proposals would starve federal programs that benefit the needy while failing to cut the federal deficit enough….While pressure in the Senate is coming from Republican moderates, in the House the pressure is from conservatives, who criticized Mr. Nussle's proposal for not going far enough in reducing spending and cutting taxes."

     Apparently, no "liberals" were involved in the discussion, although Stolberg and Kirkpatrick quote liberal Sen. Kent Conrad.

For the full budget story, click here:

"Corrupt Companies" and the Bankruptcy Bill
 

     Reporter Stephen Labaton has a new favorite phrase: "Corrupt companies." He's used the loaded term four times in his two stories on the Bush-backed bankruptcy bill winding its way through Congress. Thursday's Business Day analysis, "A New Mood in Congress To Forgo Corporate Scrutiny," uses it three times, most poignantly at the story's start: "In what has seemed a daily ritual, the Senate in the last two weeks has defeated the most modest attempts by Democrats to curb bankruptcy abuses by corrupt or troubled corporations and their senior executives. The votes illustrate a new reality and a sharp swing of the pendulum in the Senate, which has nearly completed its work on the legislation that everyone expects will soon become law."

     Later he writes: "During the recent debate on tightening the bankruptcy code, the lawmakers rejected a proposal to prohibit corrupt companies from issuing huge payouts to senior executives shortly before entering bankruptcy."

     Finally, he laments: "Elizabeth Warren, a bankruptcy and commercial law expert at Harvard Law School, has for many years led opposition to changes in bankruptcy law like those now pending and has highlighted bankruptcy abuses by the wealthy and by corrupt companies. She is struggling to explain the changing climate in the Senate."

For the full Labaton on the bankruptcy bill and "corrupt companies," click here:

Dan Rather, Just a "News Reader"?
 

     TV beat reporter Alessandra Stanley has an interesting and critical recap of Dan Rather's career as CBS News anchor (which ended Wednesday night), but lets him off the hook a little bit regarding the notorious coda of his biased career, the forged National Guard memos. She paints Rather as just an "overextended news reader," a victim of "shoddy reporting."

     She concludes: "Mr. Rather's attempts to defend himself, however, spoke more of an aging anchor's self-delusion than self-knowledge. 'Too much passion melded to loving the work leads to making mistakes,' Mr. Rather said in the hourlong tribute. 'I would rather have too much than not enough.' The mistake that led to last night's premature farewell was more mundane than that. The final indignity for Mr. Rather wasn't just that his career ended on a mistake, but that the flawed '60 Minutes' story trapped him in the role he most despised: an overextended news reader who relied, too blindly, on the shoddy reporting of his producers."

     One suspects the haughty Rather would protest Stanley's characterization of him as a mere "news reader."

For Stanley's full critique, click here: