Their “shame” didn’t last long. The largest tax bill in a generation is too big a temptation for the pin-striped set. Soon they were back on their mobile phones taking the battle to Capitol Hill. Since mid-January, the Senate Finance Committee has been inundated with sales pitches that run the gamut from tax credits for bringing broadband to rural areas to accelerated depreciation on rust-belt factories.
Gucci Gulch, the Capitol corridors where well-shod lobbyists ply their trade, is always busy this time of year. But the Bush tax-cut package has the K Street crowd on overdrive. Lobbyist Charls Walker–a veteran of the Reagan tax battles–has come out of semiretirement to lead the charge for capital-gains tax cuts. And there are whole new categories of commerce eager for favors. The software industry thinks its products should be considered a depreciable asset. Amana and Whirlpool want extra credits for producing energy-efficient appliances.
No member of the Bush team is safe from the buttonholing. “I am getting calls from my former colleagues in business,” says Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. “I tell them, ‘Don’t come to this feast… Please go away, please stand down’.” But for all his pleading, O’Neill is also a realist. “I know they’re going to go up there [Capitol Hill] and do their Gucci-loafer thing.”
The lobbyists have reason to be optimistic. Some of the city’s most prominent flesh-pressers were “Pioneers”–an elite group that raised more than $100,000 each for Bush’s campaign. Now they are hoping to convert their election-year work into a windfall for their clients. Others have the inside track: Ron Kaufman of the Dutko Group is the brother-in-law of Bush’s chief of staff, Andy Card. Card himself was a lobbyist for the auto industry until last year. And Nicholas Calio left his lobbying firm (and a seven-figure salary) to be Bush’s chief liaison–in tandem with Cheney–on the Hill. “They told me I could date Bo Derek,” jokes Calio, who still looks the K Street part with monogrammed French cuffs and natty suits. But to Calio, keeping special interests at bay is serious business. “It’s our job to say no, to ward them off,” Calio says. They’ll have their hands full, if history is any guide.
