Political Capital Bank Must Be Empty

Meet the incredible shrinking President:

President Bush is likely to postpone an all-out push to overhaul the tax code until 2007, administration officials said Monday, in another sign that the president's ambitious economic agenda for his second term has become bogged down.

Mr. Bush has already effectively given up hope for pushing through a sweeping overhaul of Social Security, which he identified as the first of his two major domestic goals as soon as he was re-elected last year. Tax overhaul was the second big goal, and Mr. Bush had laid out a broad but vague vision to make the income tax simpler, fairer and more conducive to economic growth.

On Monday, administration officials said that Mr. Bush remained committed to overhauling the tax code. But they asserted that they had "no timetable" for specific recommendations. And some officials acknowledged that such an effort next year would require scores of grueling battles at a time when all members of the House and many senators would be running for re-election.

Remember this is at a time when Republicans control both houses of Congress. And they still can't get their agenda going. Being a total incompetent will do that to you.

Of course, Bush isn't forgetting the impoverished rich:

Administration officials said Mr. Bush is focusing right now on the struggle to get Congress to extend his tax cuts from 2001 and 2003. Rather than making the tax cuts permanent, Mr. Bush's primary goal, House Republicans hope to pass a simple two-year extension of his tax cut on stock dividends; the Senate just passed a bill with no extension. Earlier this fall, Senate Republicans indefinitely postponed a separate effort to repeal permanently the tax on inherited property.

Quite a domestic agenda you've got there, Mr. President. Let me get my magnifying glass out and take a look at it again.