Tax Cut Deal: Inside A Shaken And Divided White House

Inside A Shaken And Divided White House

Within the administration, the split over whether to mount a tax-cut offensive broke down largely along wonk-operative lines. The wonks spent the last year mystified that the White House was ducking the fight when the substantive merits were so one-sided. The operatives brooded that the politics could abruptly turn against them, despite polling showing little public appetite for the upper-income cuts. "They view it through the class warfare stuff--Kerry in 2004, Gore in 2000," says one administration official. "They worry that they'll get painted as lefties, tax-raisers."

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