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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bobbie Boucher who wrote (37399)	3/21/2001 11:25:48 PM
From: Luce Wildebeest	Respond to of 50167

Help is on the way! No not Mighty Mouse....... WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration is looking for a way to deliver more of its tax cut faster than its current plan in hopes of spurring the economy, senior officials told CNN. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has asked department analysts to look at ways to provide an immediate tax cut of about $60 billion, while keeping the administration's target of $1.6 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. DOCUMENT President Bush's tax proposal -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing. RESOURCE Whitehouse.gov: President Bush's budget blueprint INTERACTIVE How will Bush's proposal affect your tax bracket? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Compare: 2001 budget vs. Bush's proposed 2002 budget IN-DEPTH CNNfn: Tax Time MESSAGE BOARD Taxing and spending O'Neill ordered the review amid growing consensus in both parties that the Bush plan will not provide any significant stimulus to the slowing economy. Treasury officials stressed that the proposals are still just ideas, and President Bush has not signed off on any major changes to his tax plan. The figure is roughly half the projected budget surplus for this year, and was suggested to O'Neill during a recent round of meetings with Senate Republicans. O'Neill plans to present Bush with a series of options in the next week, before the Senate Finance Committee drafts a budget resolution that must include a target for tax cuts -- the next key action in the tax-cut debate. One administration official said a Senate budget resolution that included an immediate tax cut of $60 billion or so and still embraced the president's 10-year, $1.6 trillion target "would be likely to get a pretty good bipartisan vote, we think." But, the official said, "we are still in the idea stage ourselves, and there are plenty of other ideas out there. There are a string of calls the president has to make at the appropriate time." The tax cut passed by the House earlier this month would provide just $5.6 billion in tax relief this year -- barely a ripple in a $10 trillion U.S. economy. And Republicans are voicing concern that Democrats are gaining steam by arguing the Bush approach does little or nothing to help those being hurt now by the slowdown. Bush has said he is open to "front-loading" more of the tax cuts, provided Congress keeps to his overall 10-year price tag. Senior officials have indicated they expect the Senate to top the House by making more of the proposed cuts retroactive to January 1. O'Neill O'Neill's action is a sign that the administration is getting more involved in trying to shape those changes as the debate moves to the evenly divided Senate. Bush had made clear he was not interested in a Democratic proposal for Congress to cut the lowest tax bracket immediately from 15 percent to 10 percent. White House officials view that as a political trap, allowing Democrats to vote in favor of tax cuts now and give them more leeway to oppose other Bush tax proposals later. "Be wary of those who talk about targeted tax cuts in Washington," Bush said Wednesday in Florida. "Those who want to pick winners and losers. That is not my vision for government." The administration has been reluctant to discuss major changes because as one official put it, "if you agree to negotiate one point then people will want to negotiate every point." But the official said it was important that the administration study the options, "so at a minimum we can prevail upon our friends to shape this in a way that is to our liking." Front-loading more of the tax cut would require adjustments if the overall package was to stay within the $1.6 trillion target. The administration study is designed to highlight those options for the president. Among the ideas being discussed in Congress are: -- A smaller cut in the highest tax bracket. Bush wants to cut the highest rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent. One way to make more money available immediately would be to cut the highest rate to 35 percent or 36 percent. -- Abandoning Bush's call to completely phase out estate taxes in favor of a much less expensive scaling back of estate taxes. The Bush proposal carries a price tag of nearly $270 billion over 10 years; one alternative Senate Republican proposal would cost about $104 billion, and Democrats last year were pushing an even less expensive reduction in estate taxes. Regardless of what happens in the Senate, many leading voices in both parties believe the tax bill will be significantly reshaped by a House-Senate conference committee. And some congressional and party sources suggest that if the economy is still struggling by the time that conference takes place, there could be added pressure to spend even more than $60 billion on an immediate tax cut. "There is already some talk of a conference deal that gets the one-year tax number up near $100 billion -- close to all of this year's surplus," said one veteran Washington lobbyist involved in tax strategy discussions.