From American Express's perspective, the decision to reduce its fees for Merivale was not capitulation, but part of a broader cut in fees it charges restaurants.
Even so, all signs are that he plans to move ahead with a broad cut, perhaps even accelerating income tax reductions in response to the slowing economy.
His broad cut in the payroll tax is an aggressive response to middle-class income stagnation, they say, and, because most senior citizens do not pay payroll taxes, they need additional help.
City officials and United States Navy officers are grappling with that question because of the federal sequestration that led to broad cuts in spending on military and domestic programs.
They accused him of exaggerating the extent of the country's fiscal problems to justify broad cuts in middle-class benefits like universal payments to parents with children.
Mr. Bush called for broad cuts in Medicaid and in Medicare, the health insurance for the elderly and the disabled, both major sources of hospital and nursing home revenue.
THE NEWS The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted to make commuting in the New York area much more costly: subway, bus and commuter rail fares and bridge and tunnel tolls would rise at least 20percentto30percentcent, with broad cuts in service.
Those recommendations included changes to Social Security, broad cuts in federal programs and actions that would lower tax rates over all but eliminate or pare enough deductions and credits to yield as much as $2 trillion in additional revenue.
Data for last year has yet to be compiled, but federal officials and poverty experts assume the number of families eligible for help has climbed, given broad cuts in working hours and other sources of income.
About the only question left to be answered was whether the Party would endorse measures narrowly targeted toward middle-income families, which is what Marco Rubio and some others are recommending, or whether it would revert to the old Reaganite model of broad cuts in tax rates, which reduce tax payments for virtually everyone, but especially the rich and to heck with the deficit.
