Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 17, 1993 TAG: 9302170111
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
CLINTON: NOT ALL `RAW PAIN'
On the eve of addressing Congress, President Clinton tried to smooth the way Tuesday for an economic austerity plan that would impose higher taxes on families making more than $30,000 but reserve the biggest blow for Americans earning $100,000 or above."I think that when you see the whole program, it won't be raw pain," Clinton said. "I think most middle-class Americans, when they look at the costs plus the benefits, they're going to be much, much better off."
The president will go before a joint session of Congress with a nationally televised speech at 9 p.m. to explain details of his $500 billion plan of tax increases and spending cuts over four years.
The broadest impact would be from a new tax on energy. Details of the energy tax were being withheld, but it is supposed to be based on the heat content of fuels.
There also will be an increase in the top individual and corporate income tax rates and an increase in the percentage of Social Security benefits subject to taxation for couples earning more than $32,000 or individuals earning more than $25,000.
The plan calls for a $15 billion investment tax credit and for $16 billion in short-term spending for job-intensive projects such as highway and bridge construction. On the cost-cutting side, the plan envisions about $55 billion in Medicare savings over five years, according to a Democratic official familiar with it. Most of that will be achieved by reducing payments to doctors and hospitals.
Beyond the taxes to be announced, White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers confirmed that the administration is considering another round of increases to pay for universal health care.
Among the options are taxes on premiums collected by insurance companies, new corporate taxes and increased taxes on such items as tobacco, alcohol, guns and pollutants.
White House aides stressed Clinton's statement that 70 percent of the revenue from all of the higher taxes would come from households earning $100,000 or more.
Communications director George Stephanopoulos said families making less than $30,000 "are very likely to have no increase at all in their taxes." While they would have been in line for higher energy taxes, they will be protected by an increase in the earned income tax credit available to the working poor.
He said that in the $30,000-$50,000 range, there would be a "very small tax increase," essentially the energy tax. In some cases, the increase would be as low as $20, he said.
White House officials indicated Clinton had decided to apply a surtax to incomes of about $250,000. They said rates would be raised on individuals with adjusted gross incomes of $140,000 and joint filers with incomes of about $180,000.
They would pay at the rate of 36 percent, instead of the current top rate of about 31 percent.