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Tax Cut Counterattack

As most of the big players on K Street remain focused on moving President Bush’s tax cut through Congress, a smaller coalition that includes some of the wealthiest Americans has begun urging lawmakers not to pass the legislation. [IMGCAP(1)]

“Many business leaders in our communities are calling for a moratorium on consideration of tax cuts,” said an ad funded by a pair of groups that oppose the GOP tax package winding its way through Congress.

The ads were paid for by the Fair Tax Coalition, a group of more than 300 organizations led by AFSCME and the People for the American Way; and Responsible Wealth, a six-year-old alliance of affluent Americans concerned about economic inequality.

“This trickle-down theory has not worked in the past,” said Arnold Hiatt, a former chief executive of Stride Rite Corp. who is a member of the coalition. “It is difficult to understand why another large tax cut would not be … harmful to a recovery.”

The group’s ads, which ran in Monday’s

edition of Roll Call, were signed by 65 members of the joint coalitions.

Write Your Congressman. In an interesting lobbying filing that might send chills down the spine of any Hill legislative correspondent, Beverly Dwayne Walker of Huntington, N.Y., has hired lobbyist Robert Brassell Jr. for an unusual assignment on Capitol Hill.

In the filing, Walker, who is retired, indicates his specific lobbying issue as: “Regularly mailing, via United States Postal Service certified mail, written correspondence addressed to various legislative, executive, military, quasi-executive, quasi-military, operational and bureaucratic functionaries and officials to lobby for various, varied desired policies, regulations, rules, orders, laws and treaties as explicitly or/and implicitly and/or otherwise wanted by Mr. Beverly Dwayne Walker.”

Brassell, the sole director, CEO and secretary of Process Handler et al. For Hire Inc., lists a Huntington post office box as his home base, according to filings culled by PoliticalMoneyLine.com.

Pacific Possessions Speak Up. Two of the United States’ Pacific outposts, Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands, have hired some new representatives in Washington to lobby on a variety of issues.

The Northern Marianas Islands commonwealth has picked up Daryl Owens Associates to “monitor all energy and water appropriations issues affecting the [commonwealth], specifically issues involving funding for new and existing water facilities.”

Meanwhile, just to the south of the island chain, Guam — like so many states and cities stateside — is interested in its share of dollars from the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century reauthorization. For this, it has hired O’Connor & Hannan.

An Employment Dispute, Defense Appropriations, and Morocco. Miller & Chevalier has added the Coalition for U.S. Based Employment, a coalition of large American employers concerned with the Extraterritorial Income Exclusion Act of 2002, which is being disputed at the World Trade Organization.

The coalition’s members include Honeywell, Boeing, Caterpillar, Microsoft and United Technologies.

Additionally, the firm is representing the trade interests of Morocco, on behalf of the kingdom’s ministry of foreign affairs.

Honeywell, the aerospace and defense giant, has also hired Van Scoyoc Associates to push for Defense appropriations, according to lobbying filings.

Elder Ford Still Playing the Game. Former Rep. Harold Ford Sr. (D-Tenn.) — the father of the current Representative of the same name — is still active in the political game.

Ford and his lobbying shop, the Harold Ford Group, are representing Strategic Government Solutions and the Community Oncology Alliance.

For both groups, the former Congressman will push health care policy and Medicare interests.

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