Treasury Department

MORE AND more employees say they want to ease into retirement, gradually reducing their hours on the job as they get older before quitting work altogether. But they might feel that their only choices are to quit work or stay on the job full time because of today's rigid pension regulations. The Treasury Department is offering a possible middle ground. Last week, the department, along with the Internal Revenue Service, proposed rules that would allow workers to cut their hours and collect part of their pensions at the same time.

WASHINGTON -- Trying to squelch a Republican drive for a major tax cut, the Treasury Department has estimated that a House GOP tax proposal would cost the Treasury nearly $3 trillion in the decade when retiring baby boomers begin to strain the Treasury.The department's $2.8 trillion cost estimate would be more than triple the $864 billion that the proposal is expected to cost in its first 10 years.Administration officials say the plan would almost certainly drive the federal budget back into the red, and they plan to use the new Treasury Department estimates in the battle with the GOP over what to do with the burgeoning budget surplus.

WASHINGTON -- A review by the Commerce Department has found that the U.S. government missed key national security problems when it allowed a Japanese company to buy the only U.S. manufacturer of some computer components used in the Patriot and Trident missiles.The transaction, involving a unit of Applied Magnetics Corp. of Goleta, Calif., was approved by the Bush administration in January. The sale was the first foreign investment issue taken up by the Clinton administration, which theoretically could still cancel it.Foreign embassies and many U.S. and foreign corporations have followed the case as a bellwether of the new administration's attitudes toward the sale of companies with militarily strategic technologies.

BOSTON - Ever wonder what happened to the State Department's chief of propaganda? The head of public diplomacy was supposed to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim street. After all that fanfare, the PR seat has been empty lo these many months. Is it possible that no one wants to be chief flack for the gang that couldn't shoot straight? Let's take the bungled case of Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize. This Iranian dissident is being prevented from publishing her memoirs in the United States because of regulations that prohibit "trading with the enemy."

Orioles third baseman Melvin Mora can't name anyone on Cuba's national team, but that doesn't mean he's unfamiliar with the country's baseball legacy. "I know their reputation and they are all good," Mora said yesterday when told that Cuba has received a license from the U.S. Treasury Department and will be able to play in March's inaugural World Baseball Classic. "They always play good baseball in Cuba, and I'd love to play against them." Mora, who will represent Venezuela in the 16-country tournament, can't face Cuba until the second round of the 17-day Classic, which starts March 3 in Tokyo and continues at various locations until wrapping up with the final March 20 in San Diego.

The federal panel that signed off on the Dubai port deal is charged with ensuring that foreign takeovers of U.S. companies don't jeopardize national security, but it's hardly spoiling for a fight. Of the roughly 1,600 cases it has reviewed in the past generation, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has considered 25 in need of a full investigation. A dozen were forwarded to the president to decide their fate. Of those, one deal - 16 years ago - was quashed. Now that a United Arab Emirates company is poised to assume some operations at six U.S. ports, including Baltimore's, the resulting surge of criticism has cast a glaring light on a process so enigmatic that it gives the tight-lipped National Security Agency a run for its money.

Like a repentant consumer who got a raise after surviving for years on credit cards, the federal government said yesterday that budget surpluses created by a strong economy could ease an addiction to credit and help it pay down a debt load that's reached $5.5 trillion.The Treasury Department said last year's surplus, combined with others projected for the next 16 years, would let the government slow its issuance of new debt and buy existing debt securities back from investors for the first time since 1972.

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner issued new guidelines yesterday aimed at eliminating the influence of lobbyists on the $700 billion financial bailout program by restricting their contact with officials who are reviewing applications for money and deciding how to disburse it. Treasury officials will also seek to limit political influence over the funds, saying they will use similar restrictions that forbid such influence in tax matters...

WASHINGTON -- The Washington Post had a story Monday that contained possibly the greatest hint to a sitting Cabinet secretary to start looking for another job that has ever been printed. The article reported, "One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long." Provided it is not very long! Yo, Mr. Secretary, I'd say someone in the White House wants you gone! If I were you, I wouldn't renew any leases for more than a month at a time -- or buy any really green bananas for the office.

Peter P. Belz Jr., a retired U.S. Treasury Department appeals officer, died March 14 of pancreatic cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. He was 71. The son of a die maker and a homemaker, Peter Paul Belz Jr. was born in Baltimore and raised on Keswick Road in Hampden. After graduating in 1959 from Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington, he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and accounting in 1963 from what is now Loyola University Maryland. Mr. Belz began his career in 1963 as an Internal Revenue Service agent in the audit office and later was promoted to a field agent.