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Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Mounting Frustration with Frist's Fixation
Congress Daily reported today that dissension within the business community over Bill Frist’s trifecta strategy — his insistence on linking the estate tax cut with the tax credit extensions -- boiled over at a White House meeting last Wednesday.
The meeting exposed the conflict between companies with bottom-line interests in the R&D and work opportunity tax credit extensions and others in the business community who support Frist’s unwavering dedication to the estate tax. As we've noted repeatedly, the former would fly through Congress in a heartbeat, if liberated from the trifecta, while the estate tax is the albatross suffocating the bill.
Lobbyists and trade associations representing R&D and work opportunity credit users hitherto scared to step on Frist’s toes are taking to Capital Hill on Thursday to urge Frist to abandon his fixation with the trifecta.
Frist has given his trifecta taskforce of Finance Chair Charles Grassley, Budget Chair Judd Gregg, Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and Trent Lott (R-MS) until the end of this week to come up with a strategy for tweaking the bill so it can pass the Senate.
Posted by Dana Chasin
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