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News Flash -- Call your Congressman and Senators!

The tax-cut bill that passed the House of Representatives on June 26th 
contains a provision (section 1054) REMOVING the tax-exempt status of the 
largest private pension fund in the country - TIAA/CREF, the pension fund 
for college professors.

Even if you aren't a college professor, you need to call and protest this 
move, because if they can do it to the TIAA/CREF, they can do it to you 
too!  Private pension funds constitute the largest untapped source of money 
for government.  Under current law, pensions are not taxed until the money 
is withdrawn as retirement income - this law would make the increased 
income from interest being accrued taxable each and every year.

NOTE:  This provision is not in the Senate version of the bill and Senator 
Pat Moynihan has promised to fight to keep it out of the House-Senate 
compromise.   But Moynihan is going to need help.  The key players working 
on this aspect of the bill (staffers of the Joint Tax Committee, Ken Kies 
and Tim Hanford) support the new tax measure.  I'm not a college professor 
and never will be, but this is a bad precedent, and just plain bad policy. 
 The Republican leadership picked this pension fund because of the 
constituency it represented - hoping that most people wouldn't find out or 
do anything about it.

Even though I usually vote Republican, I am very angry about the way 
Republicans are "dealing" in Washington.  I'm working on two packages for 
two citizen-action groups right now to garner support to defeat the measure 
- but we can use all the public activists we can get.

Phone Numbers:
Joint Tax Committee:  202-225-3621
House Members of the Joint Tax Committee are:

Bill Archer (Texas)
Phil Crane (Ill)
Bill Thomas (CA)
Charles B. Rangel (NY)
Fortney Pete Stark (CA)

Senate Members of the Committee are:

William Roth (DE)
Charles E. Grassley (IA)
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (NY)
Max Baucus (MT)

If you'd rather write, the address for the committee is:  1015 Longworth 
House Office Building, Washington, DC  20515

Capitol Hill Switchboard:  202-224-3121 (they can get you to any House or 
Senate office)
Follow-Ups:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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