>Here is the WSJ linking Rumsfeld and Cheney with Art. Laffter
>
>POLITICAL CAPITAL
>By ALAN MURRAY
>
>'Dynamic' Scoring Ends
>Debate on Taxes, Revenue
>
>Do tax cuts pay for themselves? That's been the hot debate of
>American political economy for the better part of three decades.
>But it ended last week -- with a whimper.
>
>The great argument got its start in 1974, when a White House
>chief of staff named Donald Rumsfeld sent his deputy, Richard
>Cheney, to have lunch with an ebullient young economist named Art
>Laffer and his journalistic sidekick, Jude Wanniski. According to
>local lore, Mr. Laffer sketched a curve on a cocktail napkin
>suggesting that a cut in income taxes could provide such a spark
>to the economy that government revenues would rise, not fall. The
>free lunch was born.
>
>The problem with Mr. Laffer's graph, however, was that it had no
>numbers on the axes. How much would growth be boosted? At what
>level of taxation would tax cuts become self-financing? Those
>remained the big unknowns as the issue became a central question
>of American politics.
>
>In Washington, the debate became a bureaucratic battle focusing
>on the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on
>Taxation, the two agencies responsible for advising Congress on
>the costs of budget and tax changes. By convention, both use
>"static" scorekeeping that assumes budget and tax changes have no
>effect on overall economic growth. Supply-side proponents have
>criticized both agencies relentlessly for this, but to no avail
>-- until last week.
>
>Enter Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist on leave from Syracuse
>University and an avowed advocate of supply-side "dynamic"
>scoring. A few months ago, Republican congressional leaders
>plucked him out of a job at the White House and made him director
>of the CBO. Last week, in his agency's analysis of President
>Bush's tax and budget plan, he provided his new bosses with their
>first taste of dynamic scoring.
>
>The results: Some provisions of the president's plan would speed
>up the economy; others would slow it down. Using some models, the
>plan would reduce the budget deficit from what it otherwise would
>have been; using others, it would widen the deficit.
>
>But in every case, the effects are relatively small. And in no
>case does Mr. Bush's tax cut come close to paying for itself over
>the next 10 years.
>
>For the handful of people who read the report in its entirety,
>there is another surprise. Of the nine different economic models
>used to analyze the president's plan, only two showed a large
>improvement in the deficit over the next decade as a result of
>"supply side" effects. Both those models got their results by
>assuming that after 2013, taxes would be raised to eliminate the
>remaining deficit. The theory is that people will work harder
>between 2004 and 2013 because they know that their taxes will be
>going up, and will want to earn more money before those tax
>increases take effect.
>
>Using those same models, if the assumption is changed so that
>government spending falls after 2013 to close the deficit -- the
>outcome preferred by most supply-siders -- the economic benefits
>disappear. The president's plan would cause the deficit to become
>slightly wider over the next 10 years than it would have been
>otherwise.
>
>Advocates of dynamic scoring have tried to make the most of these
>tepid results, calling the report a good first step. "You've got
>to crawl before you can walk, and you've got to walk before you
>can run," says economist Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the
>National Center for Policy Analysis and former Reagan
>administration Treasury Department economist who pushed Mr.
>Holtz-Eakin for the CBO post. Democratic opponents are still at
>arms, fearing the report is the camel's nose under the tent.
>
>But it should make both sides wonder what the hubbub of the past
>30 years has been all about.
>
>Mr. Holtz-Eakin says the new analysis, while costly and time
>consuming -- it took 35 government analysts a month and a half to
>complete the work -- is still a worthy effort. It will enable
>lawmakers to make smarter choices among policies shown by dynamic
>scoring to have a positive effect on economic growth and those
>that don't. "It's a useful supplement," he says.
>
>Former CBO chief Robert Reischauer, who was appointed by
>Democrats, largely agrees: "I think it was a very useful
>exercise. It's not inappropriate to do that exercise every year."
>
>No doubt, a lot of questions will be raised about how far to push
>this analysis. Democrats, for instance, may start advocating
>"dynamic scoring" for education spending, which many believe also
>has positive effects on the economy.
>
>But the great debate launched by Mr. Laffer and his napkin in
>1974 is for the most part over. Certainly, tax cuts can improve
>overall economic growth. And certainly, revenues may rise as a
>result. But at current levels of taxation, those effects are
>relatively small. There is no free lunch.
>
>Write to Alan Murray at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
On page 2, paragraph 6 (a); delete the sentence �Royalties are paid net of all sales both domestic and foreign.�
On page 3, paragraph 6 (g); Delete the whole paragraph (g) and the sentence �All sales subject to royalties under the provision of this Paragraph 6 shall be computed net of returns.
- On page 3, paragraph 8; are you sure that you want to give all right to the book or just written publishing rights?
- On page 3, paragraph 8, if you want to give the rights to photography, radio, movies and so on; then you should delete the sentence in the case of each of the rights specified in this paragraph 8, the net proceeds of the work.�
Everything else is standard publishing contract.
Discuss with Bob each paragraph;
Ask Basic Contract;
You must add a clause on advertisement;
Rewrite the Contract.
Deadline for completing the revise Contract �September 11�
Kucinich: Stop
>Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 13:57:28 -0800
>
>Kucinich Takes to The House Floor To Call For An End to The War
> WASHINGTON - April 1 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), who
>leads opposition to the War in Iraq within the House, today, issued
>the following statement on the House floor:
>
>"Stop the war now. As Baghdad will be encircled, this is the time to
>get the UN back in to inspect Baghdad and the rest of Iraq for
>biological and chemical weapons. Our troops should not have to be
>the ones who will find out, in combat, whether Iraq has such
>weapons. Why put our troops at greater risk? We could get the United
>Nations inspectors back in.
>
>"Stop the war now. Before we send our troops into house-to-house
>combat in Baghdad, a city of five million people. Before we ask our
>troops to take up the burden of shooting innocent civilians in the
>fog of war.
>
>"Stop the war now. This war has been advanced on lie upon lie. Iraq
>was not responsible for 9/11. Iraq was not responsible for any role
>al-Qaeda may have had in 9/11. Iraq was not responsible for the
>anthrax attacks on this country. Iraq did not tried to acquire
>nuclear weapons technology from Niger. This war is built on
>falsehood.
>
>"Stop the war now. We are not defending America in Iraq. Iraq did
>not attack this nation. Iraq has no ability to attack this nation.
>Each innocent civilian casualty represents a threat to America for
>years to come and will end up making our nation less safe. The
>seventy-five billion dollar supplemental needs to be challenged
>because each dime we spend on this war makes America less safe. Only
>international cooperation will help us meet the challenge of
>terrorism. After 9/11 all Americans remember we had the support and
>the sympathy of the world. Every nation was ready to be of
>assistance to the United States in meeting the challenge of
>terrorism. And yet, with this war, we have squandered the sympathy
>of the world. We have brought upon this nation the anger of the
>world. We need the cooperation of the world, to find the terrorists
>before they come to our shores.
>
>"Stop this war now. Seventy-five billion dollars more for war.
>Three-quarters of a trillion dollars for tax cuts, but no money for
>veterans' benefits. Money for war. No money for health care in
>America, but money for war. No money for social security, but money
>for war. We have money to blow up bridges over the Tigris and the
>Euphrates, but no money to build bridges in our own cities. We have
>money to ruin the health of the Iraqi children, but no money to
>repair the health of our own children and our educational programs.
>
>"Stop this war now. It is wrong. It is illegal. It is unjust and it
>will come to no good for this country.
>
>"Stop this war now. Show our wisdom and our humanity, to be able to
>stop it, to bring back the United Nations into the process. Rescue
>this moment. Rescue this nation from a war that is wrong, that is
>unjust, that is immoral.
>
>"Stop this war now."
>--
>--------------------------------------------------
>Drop Bush, Not Bombs!
>--------------------------------------------------
>
>"During times of universal deceit,
>telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
>George Orwell
> >Subject: [PEN-L:36429]
