President Refuses To Retreat From His Tax Proposals
President Carter insisted yesterday that he will not back off from his proposed tax legislation, arguing that it will drive down unemployment and increase family income, but will not add to inflation.</br></br>Appearing determined to get his way, the president resorted to some of the style and rhetoric of his 1976 campaign as he called on Congress to correct what he described aå¤ ÛÏa gross abuse of the average American familyÛ in the tax laws of the country.</br></br>Carter complained particularly about the fate of his revenue-raising tax ÛÏreformÛ proposals in the House Ways and Means Committee. He watered down those proposals himself before submitting them, but the committee has already voted to shelve much of what he did seek.</br></br>ÛÏOn Capitol Hill now,Û he told a nationally televised news conference, ÛÏthere is a concentrated and unbelievable number of highly qualified, very intelligent, very effective lobbyists trying to induce the members of Congress to preserve those special privileges for people who have them because they are so powerful and so influential now and in the past that they could carve out for themselves some special deal in the income tax laws of our country at the expense of the average American family.</br></br>It was a populist theme right out of the Carter-campaign, invoked by a president who appeared determined to overcome his image as an indecisive and sometimes weak leader.