If Democrats win the House now, the next Republican presidential candidate will be able to run against Nancy Pelosi and the liberal committee chairmen who would suddenly be in the headlines.
Though House Speaker Foley, who opposes cutting the capital gains tax, had said last summer that indexation of capital gains--that is, relieving the taxpayer on a holding's increased value caused by inflation--would be acceptable to him, liberal committee Democrats wouldn't have Rostenkowski's rather complicated indexing proposal.
It now falls to Obama, as it did to Bill Clinton in 1993, to pursue a realist's agenda while somehow restraining the forces in his own party — powerful liberal committee chairmen, sprawling interest groups — who would overreach, attempting to make of the party's mandate something that it is not.
Though House Speaker Foley, who opposes cutting the capital gains tax, had said last summer that indexation of capital gains--that is, relieving the taxpayer on a holding's increased value caused by inflation--would be acceptable to him, liberal committee Democrats wouldn't have Rostenkowski's rather complicated indexing proposal..
Nonetheless, with the support of liberal committee members, Kennedy's amendment to prohibit poll taxes passed by a 9-4 vote.
To assuage concerns of liberal committee members that this provision was not strong enough, Katzenbach enlisted the help of Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his support to the compromise.
The bills' framework had been laid down by moderate Democrats, and the legislation had to be approved by relatively liberal education committees in both houses.
The more liberal health committee bill includes a proposal for a government-run health plan.
Liberal Democrat committee member Paul Tyler called for greater use of the internet to involve voters, and particularly young people, in the workings of parliament.
Some are already in place — like Commonsense Ten, a liberal political committee that has had a late uptick in fund-raising — but they have not had the same level of financing as their conservative counterparts.
