Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 22, 1992 TAG: 9203220085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ART PINE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Although some lawmakers hinted earlier that they might try to push through a second tax bill later this year - possibly a compromise that Bush could support - that no longer seems likely in view of the partisan tone the president took in carrying out his veto pledge.
Instead, both sides seem intent on using tax cuts as a political issue for the remainder of the campaign, with Democrats blaming Bush for "killing" their middle-class tax cut and Bush blaming them for trying to enact a tax increase as well.
"The president doesn't want a [tax-cut] bill, he wants an issue," Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, grumbled at a news conference following the president's speech. Bush, in effect, offered the same assessment of the Democrats' motives.
Political convenience is not the only reason tax-reduction is unlikely this year. There is a deeper one: Congress itself is lukewarm about the idea.
Although Democratic congressional leaders took political risks to promote the tax-cut plan, support among rank-and-file Democrats was embarrassingly thin. Many feared the plan would increase the deficit and hurt the economy.
On several key votes over the past few weeks, Democrats were barely able to muster a plurality to pass the measure in the House, despite heavy arm-twisting by the leadership. Support in the Senate was little better.
Rep. Anthony Beilenson, D-Calif., who opposed the tax-cut bill from the start, contends that voters would prefer that Congress take the money a tax cut would cost and instead "invest in job growth" in the economy.
"The people out there are not stupid," Beilenson said. "What people want these days is not the kind of tax package that either party is offering. We are being forced by politics to do something that is not good for the country or the economy."
Economists, generally speaking, agreed. Most contended in hearings on the legislation earlier this year that the tax cut being contemplated was too small to pull the economy out of its slump and could send interest rates rising again. That, in turn, could threaten the anemic economic recovery, they said.
Both sides will get another chance to consider tax legislation in July, when Congress must decide whether to renew several existing (and politically popular) tax breaks that are due to expire. But unless the economy weakens further it is unlikely that lawmakers will seize on this excuse to propose a broad-scale tax-cut bill.
by CNB