Expensive war in the offing? Obviously there's only one possible response: even more corporate tax cuts!

Corporate Gain, Treasury's Loss in Bush Plan

The Bush administration's tax proposal on dividends has become more friendly to investors and to some companies that pay no taxes. The effect of the latest changes, if enacted by Congress, would probably be to reduce the government's tax revenue by even more than under the original plan.

The changes, included in the legislative language last week when the bill was introduced by Senator Don Nickles, Republican of Oklahoma, mean that a number of companies whose dividends would have been taxable under the president's original proposal would now be tax exempt....

One change will benefit companies that in the past have been forced to pay the corporate alternative minimum tax. Such payments can in some cases allow companies to avoid paying corporate income taxes, but under the latest version of the Bush plan, those companies may be able to pay tax-exempt dividends even as they avoid paying taxes.

So we're replacing what the conservatives call "double taxation" with ... what? Double lack of taxation?

...The other principal change would make it easier for companies to obtain refunds of taxes paid in previous years, and would make it easier for cyclical companies — companies that may make money in some years and lose money in others — to make all their dividends tax-exempt. That would not have been possible under the original Bush proposal....

Drunk on tax cutting....