The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (2024)

THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN 16-A FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2003 Deal touted on dividend tax plan Nation ROUNDUP Investigation opened in man's poisoning White House gives OK to cut in capital gains percent. Cutting the tax on dividends to 15 percent would represent a reduction of more than half for top income earners. "The House in our view has made great progress on a jobs and growth plan that includes all of the elements of the president's package," Treasury Secretary John Snow told reporters. "Going forward we intend to build on this progress and continue to work with the House and Senate to pass the 100 percent abolition of the double-tax on dividends." Democrats quickly declared their opposition to the capital gains and dividends tax cuts. "People are hurting.

They are afraid of losing their jobs, losing their health care, having to take their kids out of day care," said Rep. Charles Rangel, "What do the House Republicans offer as a way to help our economy? A capital gains tax cut that mainly goes to wealthy investors." The capital gains and dividend tax cut consumes more than half the $550 billion the House budgeted for tax cuts through 2013. The Senate continued to search for ways to include a div idend tax cut in its smaller, $350 billion budget for a decade of tax cuts. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, said he prefers complete elimination of dividend taxes over the House approach. He said he will consider temporarily repealing the taxes on dividends, under the assumption the tax cut will be extended in future years.

"Six, seven years from now, nobody's going to be arguing to increase taxes," he said. Critics say that writing temporary tax laws that will inevitably be extended in the future masks the true cost of tax cuts and hides mushrooming deficits. The Senate Finance Committee wants to consider the bill Wednesday, but Republicans and Democrats remain stuck on the dividends tax cut, and whether to give aid to cash-strapped states. The remainder of the House plan cuts taxes paid by individuals and small businesses in a bid to put money in the hands of consumers and investors. It mirrors the framework outlined by President Bush earlier this year.

Thomas plans to consider the bill in his committee Tuesday and expects the House to debate it today. Income tax rates already scheduled to decrease in future years will start to drop beginning retroactively on Jan. 1, 2003. The child tax credit would increase this year from $600 per child to $1,000 and stay there for three years. Some married couples would also get a larger standard deduction for three years, beginning immediately.

Fewer people would be hit by the alternative minimum tax. Small businesses would be able to deduct up to $75,000 of their expenses for three years, and businesses also could depreciate up to 50 percent of their assets in the year purchased. Additional provisions allow businesses to write off more of their losses. Thomas said those provisions would allow businesses to "spend and hire at a far greater rate." In order to make the entire package fit within the $550 billion limit set earlier by the House, the tax breaks directed toward married couples, children and the alternative minimum tax last only three years. AUGUSTA, Maine State police said Thursday they have opened a homicide investigation into the suspected arsenic poisoning of a man who fell ill after a reception at a northern Maine church.

Walter Reid Morrill, 78, died early Monday, a day after the reception at the Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in New Sweden. A dozen people reported feeling sick and two church members remained in critical condition Thursday. Asthma attack halts trial NEW YORK The federal retrial of a man accused of killing a rabbinical student in the 1991 Crown Heights riots briefly was halted Thursday after he had an apparent asthma attack and was taken away in an ambulance. As a medical examiner testified about the autopsy of the victim, Lemrick Nelson started breathing heavily, loosened his tie and put his head down on the defense table. His lawyers asked for a recess, and one later said that their client had an asthma attack.

By Mary Dalrymple AP Tax Writer WASHINGTON The White House gave an approving nod Thursday to a House tax cut plan that would replace the centerpiece of the president's recipe for economic growth, the elimination of taxes on corporate dividends paid to shareholders. Cabinet officials continued to push for the president's version of the tax cut but stopped short of criticizing the approach taken by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif. Thomas would tax dividends like capital gains and reduce the capital gains tax to 15 percent from the current 20 percent. Low-income taxpayers who currently pay a 10 percent tax would pay 5 percent. Dividends currently are considered ordinary income and taxed at rates as high as 38.6 CRIME Man convicted of 1983 killing of shopkeeper CHICAGO Daniel Esco-bedo, the plaintiff in a landmark 1964 U.S.

Supreme Court ruling on a suspect's right to a lawyer, has been convicted of killing a shopkeeper with an ice pick in 1983. Escobedo, 65, faces a possible life sentence after Wednesday's verdict from a jury that deliberated for about an hour. Escobedo has been arrested about 25 times for offenses ranging from attempted murder and indecent liberties with a minor to felony possession of firearms. He was released from prison in 1978 after serving 22 years on a drug conviction. Two might be linked to more deaths LONG PRAIRIE, Minn.

Two men arrested in a triple homicide in this rural town also are suspects in two deaths in their hometown of Minneapolis a week earlier, police said Thursday. Police said they knew of no link between the suspects and any of the victims, and said the motive in both cases appeared to be robbery. The bodies of Holly Chromey, 49, and her children, Katie Zapzalka, 18, and Jerrod Zapzalka, 16, were found Monday in their home in Long Prairie, about 100 miles from Minneapolis. Murder charges were expected later Thursday against Christopher Earl, 20, and Jonathan Carpenter, 21. Study shows old brains improve with chemical The trial resumed about two hours later.

Nelson, 27, is charged with violating the civil rights of Yan-kel Rosenbaum by attacking him because he was Jewish. ALSO IN THE NATION QUAKE ALERT: Scientists working in Southern California have proposed a way of interpreting feeble tremors that herald a large earthquake, a step that could help in providing advance warning. The system theoretically could give anywhere from seconds to tens of seconds of advance notice, scientists said. Details appeared today in the journal Science. FROM WIRE SERVICES sity of Michigan, said the study showing the effect of the neurochemical in aging brains is an important finding that should be researched further in humans.

"It doesn't automatically point toward a treatment, but it is an observation that needs to be followed up," said Agranoff, who was not involved in the research. "It is a quite interesting finding and the data looks very good." Some tranquilizers, such as Valium, Xanax and Librium, increase the levels of the neurochemical in the brain of human patients. This suggests that these drugs might sharpen older minds, Leventhal said. "The idea is counterintuitive," he said. "The idea that to get grandpa to move faster you have to tranquilize him isn't something that makes a lot of sense without these results." By Paul Recer AP Science Writer WASHINGTON Aging brains may be sharpened and, in effect, made young again briefly by increasing the levels of a neurochemical called GABA, a study suggests.

Researchers at the University of Utah found that the neurochemical appears to help extremely old Rhesus monkeys focus their vision and thinking processes by silencing the interfering static from other neurons. The neurochemical screens out the stray brain signals that may make thinking and seeing difficult in older brains, said Audie G. Leventhal, a professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine. "It eliminates the garbage signals," said Leventhal, first author of the study appear ing today in the journal Science. Leventhal said that in old primates, both human and monkey, there is a decline in the levels of GABA, a chemical that inhibits neuron signals in the brain.

Without enough of that control, he said, the brain is distracted and overwhelmed by stray signals, in the same way the ear is overwhelmed when trying to hear a whisper at a rock concert. "There, you wouldn't really hear anything," he said, "but if there is screaming in an empty room, then it is very easy to hear. That is sort of what GABA does." Without sufficient levels of the neurochemical to drown out all of the background signals, Leventhal said, "then all of your higher brain functions go bad." Dr. Bernard W. Agranoff, a neurochemist and professor of psychiatry at the Univer Deaths Tuesday.

Mass 10 a.m. Saturday, St. James Catholic Church. Graveside services 4 p.m. Saturday, St.

Patrick Catholic Cemetery (Smith Kernke, NW 23). COHLMIA, Thursday. Services pending (Smith Kernke, May). COX, Pete, 71, died Wednesday. Services pending (Hahn-Cook Street Draper, Oklahoma City).

DANLEY, Gerald Wayne, 68, died Tuesday. Services 10 a.m. Saturday, New Hope Methodist Church (Bill Eisenhour Southeast). DAVIS, Robert 64, died Monday. Services pending (Hunter).

FLEMING, James W. 67, died Sunday. Services 11 a.m. Saturday, St. John Missionary Baptist Church (Rolfe).

GENTRY, Rita Maxine, 70, died Monday. Services 2 p.m. Saturday (Resthaven, Oklahoma City). GILBREATH, Zachary Joel, infant son of John and Rebecca Gil-breath, died Wednesday. Graveside services 2 p.m.

today, Moore City Cemetery (John M. Ireland, Moore). GORDON, Robert 76, died April 21. Memorial service 10 a.m. Saturday (Bill Merritt, Bethany).

GREENLY, Marvel Elaine, 79, died Thursday. Private services (Yanda Son, Yukon). JOINER, Virginia 82, died Thursday. Graveside services 1 p.m. Monday, Memorial Park Cemetery (Guardian West).