"Death Tax" Bill Passes the House

On Wednesday, the House voted 264-163 to permanently repeal the death tax, making it a third major tax bill victory for President Bush. "The death tax results in unfair double taxation of income and it hurts America's small businesses, which are the engine of job creation," President Bush commented.

Also known as the estate tax bill, totaling $162 billion in reduced revenue over the next decade, expands the 2001 tax cut, which phases out the tax until it disappears altogether in 2010.

The bill now heads to the Senate. It is expected to face obstacles where it failed to pass last year by a small margin.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) did not favor the bill and expressed his doubts about the Republicans having the votes this year. "I don't think they have the votes to repeal, but we're only talking about 1.5 percent of the people who pay estate taxes today who would be affected by repeal," Senator Daschle said.

Speaker Hastert, however, defended the repeal of the "death tax" saying that "this is not just for rich people. This is for everybody who shares in the American Dream,"

President Bush Declares a Ban on Racial Profiling

On Tuesday, President Bush declared the first broad ban to prevent racial profiling, by federal law enforcement agencies. The ban prohibits the use of "generalized stereotypes" based on race or ethnicity, and allows officers to consider them only as part of a specific description or tip from an informant. The ban, however, included exceptions permitting use of race and ethnicity to combat potential terrorist attacks. During his first address to Congress in February 2001 President Bush's pledged to fight racial profiling and described it as "wrong, and we will end it in America."

"Federal law enforcement cannot simply use race with no other information that someone has committed a crime," Ralph F. Boyd Jr., assistant attorney general for civil rights, said. Boyd added that the administration expects the ban to be enforced in the state and local law enforcement. That is where most of the abuses have been documented. After September 11th, people appearing to be of Middle Eastern origin have been subject to heightened scrutiny, particularly at airports around the nation. LaShawn Y. Warren, an ACLU legislative counsel, criticized the exceptions, saying they "will legitimize and encourage the use of racial profiling at our borders, in our airports and anywhere else federal agents can apply vague and hollow justifications of national security."

Congress to Address Medicare

The House and the Senate continued work on bills that would reform Medicare. Effective in 2006, both would give seniors prescription-drug assistance in the form of private, drug-only plans if they wanted to remain in the traditional Medicare system. Otherwise they would have a new option which uses private health groups to offer comprehensive health coverage, which includes both drug coverage and preventive care. The bills would also offer seniors with lower incomes more financial assistance with prescription drug costs.

Democrats in the Senate tried to pass an amendment that would create a new government-controlled Medicare plan for seniors. It was defeated 58-37, by six Democrats and an independent in addition to 51 Republicans.

Sen. Hatch Seeks to Crackdown Online Copyright Violators

During a copyright abuse hearing on Tuesday, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee spoke strongly against the pirated music and questioned technology experts on how to develop new technology to remotely destroy computers used to illegally download music and movies from the Internet.

The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) during the hearing represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads. "If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch stated. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines." Some legal experts suggested Hatch's provocative remarks were more likely intended to compel technology and music executives to work faster toward ways to protect copyrights online than to signal forthcoming legislation. The debate over copyright infringement has been ongoing in the entertainment industry in recent years.