Bush Domestic Agenda --health and energy-both are DOA---but

[rodeodance]

bet you that they pass in some form or another!


Wed Feb-28-07 04:18 PM
Original message
Key lawmakers skeptical of Bush fuel savings plan




Key lawmakers skeptical of Bush fuel savings plan

By John Crawley 1 hour, 41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Influential members of Congress expressed doubt on Wednesday about the White House goal of raising auto fuel efficiency by 4 percent next decade, convinced the target would harm U.S. manufacturers.


Rep. John Dingell (news, bio, voting record), a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, suggested change is inevitable but he is not sold on the White House approach for saving 8.5 billions of gasoline by 2017.

"We have a target but we don't know how we're going to get there," Dingell said after skewering the Bush administration initiative at an Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing.

Administration officials acknowledged after sharp questioning by Dingell that much of the data for their proposal for passenger vehicles is rough or old, and little in-house study has been done.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070228/pl_nm/autos_fuel_dc ;_ylt=AjWDrV1eH296pm8YmvUttGjMWM0F

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Wed Feb-28-07 05:43 PM
Original message
Advisers: Bush plan would cost taxpayers

WASHINGTON - President Bush's health insurance proposals would cost taxpayers $526 billion through 2017, according to a preliminary estimate from Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation.

One Democratic lawmaker jumped on the figure Tuesday to describe the proposal as a tax increase. The projection, which comes from the committee's nonpartisan staff, is stunningly different from the administration's estimates as well as those from other independent analysts.

The White House says the changes the president seeks in the tax code are revenue-neutral over 10 years, meaning the changes would have little impact on the deficit during that time frame.

Bush's plan would do two things: For the first time, the cost of an insurance policy would be treated as taxable income. The cost includes both the employer's and the employee's payments. The result is that workers' taxable wages would shoot up dramatically.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush..
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