CORPTAX.CBS 10/12/04 8:16 AM-DLR   1:24
Sometimes compromise IS possible.  This is Dave Ross on the CBS Radio Network.
When it comes to debates over the Ten Commandments, keeping God in the Pledge, Gay marriage - members of Congress are always crystal clear.  Lines are drawn, moral codes are etched in granite, rhetoric is airtight, compromise is impossible.
But when TAX POLICY is at stake, EVERYTHING is possible.
We may not have a transportation bill, and we may not have an energy policy, but by golly, in the new Corporate tax bill, Congress finally stepped up and gave the American people what they REALLY wanted - a tax break for owners of NASCAR tracks!  $101 million!
Hollywood producers get a tax break for making films in low-income communities in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky - 8 states in all.  Finally - it will be feasible to do an 8-state remake of Deliverance.
You will finally get a clear charitable deduction for supporting subsistence native Alaskan whaling, while those of you looking for a somewhat smaller catch will appreciate the excise tax cut on fishing tackle boxes.  Congress even reached out to that long-oppressed minority, foreign gamblers, by cutting the 30% tax they paid when betting on the horses and the dogs.
Now I know this list sounds outrageous.  And yet each of these breaks has a good reason behind it - ranging from job preservation... to the fact that the tackle boxes are made in Speaker Dennis Hastert's district.
The point is that on so many OTHER debates, we see members of Congress talking past each other, seeing everything in black and white.
But when it comes to the tax breaks - suddenly, subtleties abound, and compromise is in the air.
Now this.
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