The Week

■ If John McCain does go the third-party route, the name of Teddy Roosevelt’s vehicle, Bull Moose, is available. Or he could choose a new second word.

■ The tax cut Congress has passed is disappointing in several respects. It phases in very slowly—the only immediate relief being a one-point drop in income-tax rates. Too much of it (55 percent, according to supply-side economist Alan Reynolds’s calculation) is made up of provisions that neither reduce the most damaging tax rates nor lighten the taxation of saving. But the tax cut is still larger than many observers thought possible as recently as January, and it will modestly restrain federal spending. The question now is how President Bush will follow it up. His remaining legislative agenda is uninspiring: a liberal education bill, a mixed bag of an energy plan, a tiny increase in defense spending. Bush will need to take bolder initiatives—including further tax cuts—to get conservatives to the polls in 2002.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

Grammar

■ If John McCain does go the third-party route, the name of Teddy Roosevelt’s vehicle, Bull Moose, is available. Or he could choose a new second word.

■ The tax cut Congress has passed is disappointing in several respects. It phases in very slowly—the only immediate relief being a one-point drop in income-tax rates. Too much of it (55 percent, according to supply-side economist Alan Reynolds’s calculation) is made up of provisions that neither reduce the most damaging tax rates nor lighten the taxation of saving. But the tax cut is still larger than many observers thought possible as recently as January, and it will modestly restrain federal spending. The question now is how President Bush will follow it up. His remaining legislative agenda is uninspiring: a liberal education bill, a mixed bag of an energy plan, a tiny increase in defense spending. Bush will need to take bolder initiatives—including further tax cuts—to get conservatives to the polls in 2002.