A tax to boost share prices?

Washington was in a tizzy last month after the sudden defection from the Republican party of senator James Jeffords of Vermont. Jeffords' historic move tipped control of an evenly divided US Senate to the Democrats and it came within a whisker of changing the fate of the Bush administration's tax proposals. But Jeffords decided to stay in the Republican fold for a few more days until Congress could finish work on that all-important bill. Big bucks had been riding on the outcome for Wall Street.