Bush lobbies for tax-cut proposal
at Chamber of Commerce rally
KNIGHT-RIDDER TRIBUNE/HARRY HAMBURG
President George W. Bush spoke Monday about tax relief to the
United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C.
by Naftali Bendavid
Chicago Tribune
April 17, 2001
WASHINGTON - President Bush,
using the dreaded annual tax filing
deadline to push his $1.6 trillion tax
cut plan, rolled out a new argument
and slogan Monday, repeatedly tell
ing cheering supporters at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce that "enough
is enough."
Bush focused not only on the need
for fairness and for an economic
boost, as he usually does, but also on
the size of the tax burden on the na
tion.
The federal government will take a
bigger share of the U.S. economy this
year, Bush said, than it has since 1944,
when it was still fighting World War
"Our country is at peace, but our
government is charging wartime
prices," he said. "Enough is enough."
Bush was flanked by two enormous
replicas of 1040 tax forms as he
spoke. "The U.S. government will
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collect twice as much income tax rev
enue in 2001 as it did in 1981," Bush
said, adding again, "Enough is
enough, folks."
Bush's address came on the day
when Americans are perhaps most
aware of how much they pay in taxes,
and also at a pivotal time in the fight
for his tax cut. The House recently ap
proved Bush's $1.6 trillion plan vir
tually intact, while the Senate ap
proved a smaller cut of $1.2 trillion
over 10 years.
Members of the House and Senate
will soon sit down to hammer out a
compromise, and Bush is working
hard to push the final figure closer to
his original proposal.
As with all political fights, this has
been in part a battle over images and
slogans. Democrats held a news con
ference featuring a Lexus automobile
and a muffler, arguing that under
Bush's plan the rich would receive
enough money for a luxury car while
middle-income taxpayers would only
get enough for the automobile part.
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try proclaiming, "It's not the
government's money, it's the
people's money" and "Somebody's
being overcharged, and I'm here to
ask for a refund." Now "Enough is
enough" has apparently been added
to the list.
Some economists, however, take
issue with the basic message Bush
was sending Monday. The reason the
tax burden has grown so much, these
critics say, is not that average Ameri
cans are paying more, but that the
number and income of wealthy
Americans has increased so dramati-
cally in recent years.
As is his usual practice, Bush
spoke before a selected, highly sup
portive audience, in this case busi
ness leaders who interrupted him
numerous times with applause, in
cluding several standing ovations.
Bush has alternately wooed and
berated the senators whose support
he will need for a tax cut. On Mon
day, he aimed somewhat sharper lan
guage at lawmakers who are con
cerned about its size, especially
senators who voted recently to spend
more on health and education rather
than the tax cut.
"Some members of Congress
complained that they did not have
enough money to spend, but in 2001
the income tax will yield $2 billion
in revenues for each and every one
of the 535 members of Congress,"
Bush said. "I think they should be
able to get by on that - even the sena-
The Senate vote, he added, is
"proving the point I make all across
the country: If you send it, they will
spend it."
mincer researchers continue
to study benefits, risks of aspirin
•
Dace co *naide a medical pipe dream, the meory that
aspirin can hellipttvent and treat a variety of cancers now
seems firmly meted in science,; says Timothy lila, head
of the vascularbiokw laboratory at the University of Con
necticut Health Center in Parmington.
What Hla and other scientists have not figured out yet,
though, is how aspirin and related`drugs accomplish this
nifty trick. And they say that until more is known about
the risks and benefits of therapy with pain relievers, it is
too early to deploy them widely in the war against cancer.
It's a hot field. There is no doubt there is an important
biologic effect," says Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemi
ology at the American Cancer Society. "But no one knows
exactly what it is and how to use it."
laboratory is one of several in the United States
trying t?*scover why topptli' ke drugs known as NSAIDs
Onsteroidal anti.intliniThite, drugs - seem to be ben.
eficial in combating cancer. The therapeutic benefits of
aspirin already have been shown in heart disease and
up in large amounts oncologists already prescribe NSAIDs, says Dr. Dominick
in tumors We was studying, and he named it Cox-2 in a Pasquale, director of hematology and oncology at St.
1992 PaPet - Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, Conn.
Aspirin suppresses'the production of both Cox-2 and Hla and Pasquale both caution that even Cox-2 inhibitors
its close cousin, Cox-1, The connection between Cox-2 are not free of health risks, and they agree that more stud
and tumors was intriguing, because in the mid-1980s, re- ies need to be done before aspirin-like drugs are regu
search had shown that people who took aspirin regularly larly prescribed to prevent cancer.
had a 40 percent reduced risk of developing colorectal
Revisionist history in Japan minimizes
atrocities before, during WWII
The abduction and forced prostitution
of tens of thousands of "comfort
women" for Japanese soldiers during
World War II did not happen. Or if it did,
Japanese scholar Tadae Takubo does not
want his daughter to read about it.
Much the same can be said, Takubo
believes, about the 1937 Nanjing
massacre by Japanese troops
known as the Rape of Nanking,
Japan's brutal occupation of Ko-
rea and other acts committed dur-
ing the war - a war, he implies,
that Japan was forced to under-
The views of Takubo and other
revisionist Japanese historians, re
flected in a new junior high school
history textbook, are threatening
to explode the improving relations
between Japan and South Korea,
and have piqued the anger of
China and North Korea as well.
South Korea recalled its ambas
sador to Tokyo last week and can-
celed official visits. Lawmakers in
Seoul are calling for a boycott of
Japanese goods.
Street demonstrations have
erupted outside the Japanese Em
bassy in South Korea. Even Presi
dent Kim Dae-jung, who supports
LEIBIEM
quiet diplomacy, has criticized the
Japanese government. And a
South Korean lawmaker staged an
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unusual six-day hunger strike beside the
Japanese parliament.
"It's intolerable to misrepresent what
Japan did in that era. It's intolerable to
use a distorted textbook to teach it at
school," said Kim Young-jin, 53, who
came to Japan on April 10 to protest the
textbook and decided spontaneously, he
said, to stage a sit-in. Before he ended
the hunger strike Monday, he had at
tracted a small crowd of supporters and
garnered extra protection from police.
This is an old story for Japan, which
still seems to be a captive of its wartime
past. Politicians, from Prime Minister
Yoshiro Mori on down, have regularly
gotten into trouble for statements that
seem to reflect a lingering sentiment in
favor of Japan's colonial expansionism,
which carried its armies into China,
Korea, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
Similar controversies over the treat
ment of wartime history in Japanese text
books arose in the 1960 s and 1980 s, re
viving bitter feelings between Japan and
the people it formerly ruled. But Japan
had hoped that time and diplomacy had
finally put those problems behind, at
least concerning its ties with South Ko
rea.
Relations with South Korea had im
proved tremendously, boosted by the
1998 acceptance by Kim Dae-jung of
Japan's apology for its 1910-45 occupa-
OVUM= Hathaway
The Hartford Courant
April iB, 2001
by Doug Struck
The Washington Post
April 18, 2001
tion of Korea. Tourism and trade be
tween the countries have boomed.
Seoul ended its ban on Japanese pop
culture, which has flooded South Ko
rea. The two countries are jointly spon
soring the World Cup soccer finals next
year.
But now Korean newspaper editori
als decry "Japan's extreme national
ism." The Korea Herald, in one such
column, protested that "the Japanese
WASHINGTON POST PHOTO BY SHIGEHIKO TOGO
Supporters encourage South Korean lawmaker Kim Young-jin on the last
day of his hunger strike outside Japan's parliament building in Tokyo to
protest a new history textbook. The views of revisionist Japanese histori
ans, reflected in a new junior high school history textbook, have piqued the
anger of South Korea, China and North Korea.
must wake up from the erroneous per
ception that they were the victims of
World War II." In China, the official
news agency said "a handful of ultra
rightist forces are still trying to reverse
the verdict on Japan's wars of aggres
sion."
"This is very serious," a top Japanese
Foreign Ministry official, who asked
not to be identified, said with a sigh.
"We have tried to explain that we have
done all that can be done. But they feel
it's not enough. I think the disappoint
ment at a deep level for the Korean
people will have a long-term effect."
Takubo and others in the Japanese
Society for History Textbook Reform
see it differently.
"This is blatant interference by a for
eign country," said co-author
Nobukatsu Fujioka, a professor at To
kyo University, in an appearance with
Takubo last week to defend the Junior
High School Social Studies New His
tory Textbook.
"All nations have a right to interpret
their history in their own way, and pass
down that interpretation. I think that is
a part of sovereignty," he said.
The revisionists argue that claims of
Japanese atrocities in the war are, as
Fujioka put it, "wartime propaganda ...
just a rumor;" that descriptions of its
occupations are one-sided; and that
cancer.
Research during the early 1990 s showed that it was
excess production of Cox-2 that causes inflammation and
pain, while Cox-1 plays a more beneficial role in protect
ing the stomach lining.
The discovery led to a pell-mell rush to develop drugs
that specifically act against Cox-2 to relieve chronic pain
in arthritis and other ailments - without the excessive risk
of dangerous stomach problems that long-term use of
NSAIDs such as aspirin can cause.
The success of so-called Cox-2 inhibitors in fighting
chronic pain has tended to overshadow ongoing research
into their potential cancer-fighting benefits.
Studies have found large amounts of Cox-2 in cancers
of the bladder, esophagus and head and neck. Last month,
researchers reported that women who took aspirin at least
three times a week had a 40 percent less chance of get
ting ovarian cancer.
Hla cautions that Cox-2 alone probably does not create
tumors in , people, He theorizes excess amounts of Cox-2
interfere with apoptosis, the body's ability to order dam
aged cells to destroy themselves - essentially cell suicide.
Mutated cancer cells take advantage of this lapse in the
ish themselves in a variety of
MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2001
the puzzle," lila says.
Of mutations, not just
inentaindildduah;with
into colon cancer, some
Japan's conquests should he seen in the
context of empires held by Furopean
powers
They argue that the "Greater East
Asian War, - which evokes a term used
by the imperial government during the
war, was really a battle to secure inde
pendence for Asian peoples. And,
Takubo said, "Unlike Germany, Japan
has never tried to massacre one people
based on ideology," a distinction that
sounds hollow to those with a memory
of the vast number of casualties of the
Japanese conquests.
The revisionists say descriptions of
Japan's colonization of Korea fail to
give credit for roads, bridges and other
infrastructure built by Japan at the time.
But to many Koreans, that is akin to
arguing that a condemned man got a
good last meal. They recall a brutal oc
cupation in which hundreds of thou
sands of men were forced , into virtual
slavery, women were taken for sexual
services and Japanese authorities tried
to stamp out the use of the Korean lan
guage and names.
Takubo said his group decided to
write a history text because "We have
too little patriotism in current Japan."
His group's literature says it offers an
alternative to "history fabricated by the
victors" of the war in which "Japan was
made to bear sole responsibility for the
ravages of war. Japan was never per
mitted to present its case."
When their book was submitted to
the Education Ministry screening com
mittee, clines outside Japan began to
protest. But after requiring 137 amend
ments to the book - which the authors
describe as minor - the screening com
mittee on April 3 approved the text to
be offered to school districts next year.