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While we were getting organized and dealing with the controversies in the press, most of my time in January and February was devoted to filling in the details of the economic Cheap UGGS outlet plan. On Sunday, January 24, Lloyd Bentsen appeared on Meet the Press. He was supposed to give nonspecific answers to all questions regarding the details of the plan, but he went a little further than that, announcing that we would propose a consumption tax of some kind and that a broad-based energy tax was Cheap UGGS for toddlers under consideration. The next day, interest rates on the governments thirty-year bond fell from 7.29 to 7.19 percent, the lowest rate in six years.
Meanwhile, we were struggling with the budget details. All the spending cuts and taxes that raised real money were controversial. For example, when I met with Senate and House leaders on the budget, Leon Panetta suggested that we have a one-time three-month delay in increasing the Social Security cost-of-living allowance. Most experts agreed that the COLA was too high, given the Cheap UGGS sale low rate of inflation, and the delay would save $15 billion over five years. Senator Mitchell said that the suggested delay was regressive and unfair, and that he couldnt support it. Neither would the other senators. Wed have to find that $15 billion elsewhere.
Over the weekend of January 3031, I brought the cabinet and senior White House staff to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Marylands Catoctin Mountains. Camp David is a beautiful wooded site, with comfortable cabins and recreational facilities, staffed by men and women Cheap UGGS with bow from the navy and the Marine Corps. It was the perfect setting for us to get to know one another better and talk about the year ahead. I also invited Stan Greenberg, Paul Begala, and Mandy Grunwald. They felt that they had been shut out of the transition, and that an obsession with the deficit had overtaken every other objective I had advanced in the campaign. They thought Al and I were courting disaster by UGG boots sale disregarding the deeper concerns and interests of the people who had elected us. I sympathized with them. For one thing, they hadnt been in on the hours of discussions that led most of us to the conclusion that if we didnt deal with the deficit, we couldnt achieve sustained strong growth and that my other campaign commitments, at least those that cost money, would die in the stagnant backwater of a sluggish economy.
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