Looks like Bush tax cut will be cut in half.
House GOP Leaders Seek Budget Support
By ALAN FRAM 03/20/2003 12:00:38 EST
Republican leaders hunted Thursday for enough votes to push their revised $2.2 trillion budget for next year through the House, as party moderates complained that it still contained spending and tax cuts that were too large.
Top Republicans had already removed proposed Medicare cuts from the fiscal plan in a bid for support from centrists. But several moderates said they remained upset about cuts in other benefit programs like Medicaid. Concern over the plan for $1.4 trillion in tax cuts over the coming decade gained new urgency with the start of what is expected to be an expensive war against Iraq.
"If the president said ... crunch down on the overall budget, I'd buy that," said moderate Rep. Amo Houghton, R-N.Y. "But don't take a tax cut on top of that."
Despite the moderates' complaints and the likelihood of overwhelming Democratic opposition, GOP leaders predicted they would have enough votes to push the measure through the House by the end of what was likely to be a long day.
The focal point of the budget's planned tax reductions was President Bush's plan to cut taxes by $726 billion through 2013. It would eliminate levies on corporate dividends and accelerate income tax rate reductions set for 2004 and 2006.
In the narrowly divided Senate, a vote seemed possible on a drive by Democrats and centrist Republicans to shrink the cost of Bush's economic package to $350 billion through 2013. With backing expected from three GOP senators, the effort could succeed if every Democrat but Bush supporter Zell Miller of Georgia voted 'yes.'
"It's a question of whether we get them all," Sen. John Breaux, D-La., one of the sponsors, said of his Democratic colleagues. "If we get them all, we can pass it."
Though the public was riveted by what seemed like impending war with Iraq, a decision by the GOP-run Senate to halve Bush's economic plan could sap momentum from his domestic agenda. And while it would not be the last word on the size of the tax reductions, it would signal that he was all but certain to get less than he wanted.
With federal deficits for the next two years expected to shatter the $290 billion record set in 1992, the Senate budget promises to restore annual surpluses by 2013, the House by 2012. But to do so, both rely on spending reductions in a range of domestic programs that seem so politically unpalatable that many analysts consider them unlikely to pass Congress.
When the House and Senate approve a compromise budget - perhaps next month - it will set limits on overall expenditures and revenue collection by the government. It does not need Bush's signature. Later bills will enact actual changes in tax and spending policy, and decide the details.
Some Democrats said Republicans were using the distraction of war to whisk a budget through the Senate that would cut taxes on the wealthy while omitting money for the costs of combat with Iraq. They said work on the budget should be postponed until next week so lawmakers could focus on the war.
"We know why we're being jammed on this right now," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said while the Senate would spend time discussing the war should the invasion begin, the chamber would nonetheless complete the budget this week.
"They may want to see us fail" and not pass a budget quickly, Frist said of Democrats' remarks.
Sponsoring the $350 billion tax-cut amendment with Breaux were Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Max Baucus, D-Mont. Democrats said Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., would vote with them, though Chafee said he was likely to do so.
Aides said some Democrats were reluctant to support that amendment because they did not want to help the GOP pass any tax cut at all. Most Democrats, however, were said to agree that cutting it to $350 billion was the best chance they had to reduce it significantly.
In changing their budget so it would have enough votes to pass the House, GOP leaders agreed to erase about $215 billion in planned Medicare savings over the coming decade.
They also retained about $255 billion in cuts that congressional committees would have to find in benefit programs like Medicaid, and agreed to boost spending next year for veterans. |
