Dan Rostenkowski

"You know, in Chicago, we have a very unusual association with people that work for us."-- Dan RostenkowskiI had just finished my freshman year at college and needed a summer job. So I did the usual things: responded to classified ads, went to employment agencies, made phone calls, sent out letters.There were a lot of kids doing the same thing, however, and I was getting nowhere. But the father of my girlfriend was a community activist who happened to know Marshall Korshak, city treasurer of Chicago.

Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy is coming back, and so is Virginia's Chuck Robb. In California, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein defeated Rep. Michael Huffington in the most expensive Senate race ever. But those pieces of good news for Democrats were not enough. A Republican tide swept the GOP into control of both houses of Congress. The biggest surprise was the gain of some 50 or more seats projected for the Republicans in the House, a triumph far beyond even the most optimistic GOP projections.

WASHINGTON -- Bowing to rank-and-file pressure, the Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House tax-writing committees have agreed to propose a tax cut for middle-income taxpayers in October and to push for its adoption next year.bTC Because the legislation is expected to meet pay-as-you-go requirements of last year's budget agreement between President Bush and Congress by sharply increasing taxes for upper-income Americans, however, it appears certain to be vetoed with scant chance of an override.

WASHINGTON -- Businesses paid for two-thirds of nearly 4,000 privately financed trips that members of the House accepted in 1989 and 1990, according to a study released yesterday by a consumer advocacy group.Corporations and business associations paid for 66 percent of the trips, religious and ideological groups for 19 percent, educational institutions for 7 percent and labor unions for 2 percent, with the remaining 6 percent paid for by individuals or groups whose interests could not be identified by the researchers, according to Congress Watch.

Tax-reduction plans for the middle class are sprouting faster than Democratic presidential candidates, but Maryland's only representative on Congress' tax-writing committee says time is running out for a plan to pass Congress this year.Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he would like to see a bill passed to remedy problems with the tax system.But it will be difficult, he acknowledged, to reach an agreement on such a contentious issue before Congress adjourns at Thanksgiving.

WASHINGTON -- Extending an election-year olive branch to Congress, President Bush yesterday endorsed a $2.7 billion compromise measure to extend jobless benefits another 13 weeks for the long-term unemployed.The House Ways and Means Committee swiftly adopted the bill without opposition.In contrast to monthslong battles over unemployment benefits last year, the new bill was expected to sail through the House and Senate next week and be rushed to the president's desk for his signature as the first recession-relief measure of 1992.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., the powerfu chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and two other congressmen yesterday spurned a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury investigating the House post office, charging that a U.S. attorney was playing politics with the law.The House post office has been the focus of congressional and Justice Department investigations in recent months because of alleged sales of small amounts of...

WASHINGTON -- Major League Baseball apparently struck out with most members of the Maryland congressional delegation, who say they are declining an offer of tickets to the sold-out All Star game at Camden Yards.Only three of the state's 10 members of Congress have decided to accept the invitation to purchase two passes to the July 13 game. They are Democratic Rep. Steny H. Hoyer and Republicans Helen Delich Bentley and Wayne T. Gilchrest.Mr. Hoyer plans to attend, and Ms. Bentley has said she'll ask other members of Congress who don't go to give her their tickets so that she can sell them to people from her district.

For an experienced poker player, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin has a peculiar abhorence to taking chances. In fact, the entire political career of this Baltimore metropolitan area congressman has been built upon the premise of avoiding risks. He likes to hold all the high cards before increasing his bet.So far, that strategy has worked well for Mr. Cardin, who has risen from appointment as a state delegate while still in law school to House Ways and Means Committee chairman in Annapolis to House of Delegates speaker and now to a member of Congress with a key health-care subcommittee assignment.

President Clinton remarked the other day that he was stunned, stunned by the "incredible cynicism" he encounters in Washington. There's an assumption, he went on, that "on the most minor matters you're not telling the truth."About his own administration, he said: "There's not one single shred of evidence that anybody here has tried to abuse the authority of the presidency . . . Not me, not any of my top aides. There have been no scandals in this administration."This from a president whose White House staff was engulfed in its travel office scandal hardly before bags were unpacked in D.C.This from a president who blandly described his trip to Chicago last week to boost the re-election of House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan Rostenkowski as non-political -- a designation that allowed the trip to be charged to the taxpayers.