But reducing government spending does the opposite and is the functional equivalent of raising taxes.

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The plaintiffs, however, argued that the new moratorium "is the functional equivalent of the first one, " according to court documents.

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The first is that many of these tax breaks are the functional equivalent of spending and should be treated as such.

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Worse yet, we are allowing the functional equivalent of wasting taxpayer dollars since taxpayers funds are allocated to the state universities and most of the NCAA D-1 schools are state supported.

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When Ken Lay returned to being CEO of Enron in August 2001, he was told in no uncertain terms that Enron was the functional equivalent of a ticking time bomb--the looming losses were that severe.

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Valdez also discussed an innovative option his firm is pioneering to give clients an alternative to the typical operating line of credit: In these cases, Pavestone will pool the customer invoices into a fund that becomes the functional equivalent of a traditional line of credit.

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The results, which will be reported in a forthcoming issue of Functional Ecology, suggest that echelon swimming is the underwater equivalent to carrying a child.

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