Harkin blasts tax cut

President Bush and other Republicans today are celebrating their “victory” in last night’s passage by a House-Senate conference committee of a 350-billion dollar tax cut package. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, says the package is “objectionable” and “disappointing” because it was stripped of a key provision that would have offered significant help to rural Iowa. Harkin says “What’s left in the bill is tax breaks for the wealthiest. It won’t create jobs and it’ll not grow the economy. (The) bill will cause exploding deficits making it impossible for us to invest in social security and education, health care.” A provision was removed from the tax package last night that would have provided millions of dollars to Iowa hospitals and doctors’ offices for treating Medicare patients.Supporters say the plan would have spent 25-billion dollars to even out geographic differences between urban and rural hospitals. Harkin says the Medicare provision would have shored up the disparity between the states on reimbursements, which he says “is the major issue confronting Iowa today” as Iowa is “dead last” in reimbursement rates. It would have given Iowa health care providers an estimated 377-million dollars over ten years for treating the elderly and disabled. Harkin says he won’t give up on the measure and hopes to re-introduce it soon. In lambasting the tax cut package, Harkin says “The Republican leadership is gambling with our chidren’s money and our children’s future.”