BC,

Here's a story that I doubt you'll be reading in any newspaper or hearing on
any network broadcast.  It's a story that is so wonderfully devious, so utterly partisan,
that the media elite won't tell it even if they could prove it.  So, I give you:
The Grand Plan Of The Democratic Party To Whip Bush And Defeat The GOP.

I believe that in the waning days of the Clinton administration a plan was
hatched to trap the Republicans and give the Democrats a simple campaign
theme for 2002 and possibly even 2004.  That theme is: "The Republicans are
irresponsible!".  The problem for the Democrats would be to see if they
could get the GOP to commit suicide while protecting the Democrats who
handed them the rope.  It turned out they could and now the GOP has not only
slipped the noose over their collective heads but jumped off the ladder as
well.  And those Democrats that helped the GOP do it, well, most of them
have the ultimate political cover.  President Bush.

Not long after the Great Wrecked Election of 2000, George W. Bush stood
before Congress announcing to the nation that he wanted it all.  The whole
enchilada!  Everything, the huge tax cut, increased spending for the military,
increases for medical research, the star wars missile defense scheme.
All while paying down the debt, protecting Medicare and Social Security.

That speech was one of the most boastful and arrogant statements that I've
ever seen.  That arrogance was at the heart of "the plan".  "The plan" it
turns out was surprisingly simple.  Get the arrogant GOP to pass a monster
tax cut, with a few Democratic provisions like rebate checks for this year,
that would bust the budget if the slowing economy continued.

As the budget resolution and subsequent tax cut debates began, it became
clear that the House was a lost cause.  Bush would get his tax cut as proposed,
with all the larger cuts coming after 2002 and some of the biggest after 2004.
It would fall to the closely divided Senate to carry out "the plan".  If Democrats
in the Senate could front load enough tax cuts and rebates for this year, but not
too much as to be obvious,  "the plan" might work.  So, that's just what they did.

I suspect there was plenty of snickering going on in some Democratic circles
as Bush signed the tax bill on June 7, 2001.  Bush was anxious to show the
nation that he was a strong President and that he could break those
weak-kneed Democrats.  Bush and his GOP cronies beamed, not knowing that
they had just stepped into a huge trap laid for them by the Democrats.

You see, I had run the numbers weeks before the tax cut passed and even I
knew that the GOP was playing a most dangerous high-wire act with a front
loaded tax cut.  If the economy continued to sputter, the budget was toast.
We'd be dripping with red ink all over again.  In record time, on Bush's
watch and more importantly before the 2002 midterm elections!! How could the
Bushies not know?  Simple, arrogance!

So, here we are today.  The CBO has just released it's numbers and the Bush
tax cut (along with a few Democratic provisions) has us around nine billion
in the hole.  It's not enough to really harm the nation but rather just
enough to show that Bush and the GOP are fiscally irresponsible.

The beauty of this kind of plan is that there is virtually no way out for
the GOP.  Bush and his cronies actually took the Democrat's bait and started
championing the notion of the front loaded cuts as a method to jump start
the economy.  No matter how hard they wiggle and squirm, they will only sink
the hook in deeper.  If Bush tries to weasel out (like say, cooking the
books. that was a non-starter eh?) he will only look weak.

So, after waiting all this time, Marc Perkel will finally get hear what he
waited all last year to hear from Gore:

"BUSH AND THE REPUBLICANS ARE IRRESPONSIBLE!!!".

I suspect the entire nation will be hearing it for some time to come.

But wait, what about those few Democrats that crossed over and voted for the
tax cut?  Well, most of those folks are "red" state Democrats and they can
simply say to their voters: "Hey, you guys voted for Bush.  You wanted his
big tax cut.  I was just doing your bidding.".  And there's not one damn
thing the Bushies and the GOP can do about it.

So the Democrats did it.  They horn-swoggled Bush and the arrogant GOP into
giving the Democrats a unifying theme for 2002, while simultaneously getting
the GOP to undercut their own credibility.

To me this was a master stroke of politics and it's got the Big Dog's finger prints all over it.
So you may want to cut the Democrats a break from time to time.  Pink tutus and all!

Cheers,
Jerry