I would call these guys "pigs", but I'm starting to think that I should stop insulting pigs. They don't deserve to be lumped in with whatever this species is.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 - Republicans of all stripes want to cut taxes, but rarely have they been in so much disarray about whose to cut.
If House Republicans and President Bush have their way, more than half of tax reductions over the next five years will go to the top 1 percent of households, those with average incomes of $1.1 million.
House leaders are pushing a $63-billion tax-cutting package that would extend President Bush's tax cut on stock dividends, protect oil companies from a windfall profits tax and shield people caught using illegal tax shelters.
The Republican-controlled Senate, by contrast, has passed a bill that would cut taxes by $59 billion but ignore Mr. Bush's top priority, and that contains two other provisions that have provoked his wrath.
The Senate bill omits an extension of Mr. Bush's tax cuts for stock dividends and capital gains, which are to expire at the end of 2008.
Instead, almost half of the bill is devoted to shielding middle-income and upper-income families from the alternative minimum tax.
The Senate bill has also proposed two revenue-raising measures that Mr. Bush has threatened to veto: a one-year, $5-billion tax on major oil companies and a provision that would make it easier to impose steep penalties on people caught using illegal tax shelters.
The impact of the two bills would be wildly different. According to calculations by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group, about 51 percent of the tax cuts in the House bill would go to the top 1 percent of income earners.
The Senate bill favors upper-income families, but not nearly as much: only about 12 percent of the benefits would go to the top 1 percent of earners.
Awwww. How sad. I weep for the wealthy. Surely there are a few more little kids and old ladies we can stick it to.
The enormous gulf reflects more than just Republican disarray. With budget deficits likely to widen again next year, even as Congress cuts money for programs like Medicaid and child support, Mr. Bush and his allies have to choose between warring constituencies.
The budget problems have amplified Republican difficulties. Staunch fiscal conservatives, seeking to attack the budget deficit, forced Republican moderates to vote for politically painful cuts in Medicaid, student loans and child-support enforcement.
But Republican moderates are now balking at tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the very rich.
Democratic lawmakers, hoping to exploit Republican uncertainty, have remained unusually unified and were almost jubilant when Mr. Bush threatened to veto the Senate tax bill because of the tax on oil companies.
"It just shows you how outside the mainstream they are," said Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, a senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. "What they should be threatening is to veto a cut in child-support funds, cuts in student loans or cuts in funds for child health care."
Republican leaders betrayed their own anxiety, postponing a vote on the House tax bill just before Congress's Thanksgiving break.
How about "jackals"? Does that work? Or should I just stay away from the animal kingdom all together?