US senator b*tch slaps Bush
reuters.com
US senator says Bush pushing too hard for tax cut
Sat May 3, 2003 11:06 AM ET
WASHINGTON, May 3 (Reuters) - Independent Sen. Jim Jeffords said on Saturday the fervor for tax cuts as become a theology rather than an economic policy for some Republicans and warned President George W. Bush against pushing lawmakers too hard for his $550 billion package.
The Vermont senator bolted the Republican Party two years ago in a dispute with the White House over the way Bush and his Republican allies in Congress handled their drive for the $1.35 trillion tax cut that Bush signed into law in 2001.
Jeffords is an independent but votes with Democrats, who invited him to give their weekly radio address on Saturday. He said history was repeating itself in the current debate over the tax cut package Bush says is needed to boost stock prices and create jobs.
"The president is again proposing a budget that does not adequately fund America's needs and includes new tax breaks that are likely to force disastrous cuts in urgent and national programs and create horrendous future deficits," Jeffords said.
"When did standing on principle, speaking your conscience and representing your constituents become unacceptable in certain Republican circles?" he said.
FINANCING TAX CUTS WITH DEBT
Jeffords said Bush's proposed tax cut will be financed with borrowed money that the nation's children and grandchildren will eventually have to pay back. He also said the deficits threatened to explode just as the baby boom generation, born from 1946 to 1964, begins to retire and draw on Social Security and Medicare.
"This fervor for tax breaks at the expense of all else demonstrates that there are some who see tax cuts not as a policy, but as a theology," Jeffords said. "Their belief that tax cuts will solve any problem is uncompromising, unyielding, and, sadly, undeterred by past experience."
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley in a recent interview with CNN that Republicans were unlikely to get everything they wanted if they hope to pass the tax cut through the closely divided Senate.
"If Republicans push too hard, you have what happened to us two years ago with Senator Jeffords leaving the party," the Iowa Republican said. He quickly added that he did not expect that to happen.
Bush initially proposed a $726 billion 10-year tax package that would accelerate scheduled income tax cuts and eliminate taxes on stock dividends. Lawmakers have been trying to fit his proposals into a smaller $550 billion amount approved by the House of Representatives and $350 billion approved by the Senate.
Democrats oppose big new tax cuts, arguing Bush's plan will add to deficits and lead to higher interest rates, benefit the wealthy and provide little stimulus to the soft economy.
The House is expected to act on its pared-down version of the tax cut next week. The bill would reduce tax rates on both dividends and the sale of stocks and other assets. It also would accelerate income tax cuts already scheduled.
The Senate hopes to act on its version next week as well. But members of the Senate Finance Committee are struggling to reach agreement on key components including dividend taxes and aid to cash-strapped states.
House Republicans have expressed frustration with the Senate where moderates worried about rising budget deficits have refused to support a larger tax cut.
"I am tired of trying to fit the Senate," Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, told reporters earlier this week.
"We've done what the president says, we have compromised from $726 (billion) down to $550 (billion) and if the Senate can't get its work done, that's just too bad," he added. |
