
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 28, 1993                   TAG: 9305280182
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

TAX BILL SQUEAKS BY IN HOUSE

Democrats pushed a massive deficit-reduction tax increase through the House Thursday night, handing President Clinton a narrow victory in the most critical test of his fledgling administration.

The vote was 219-213, with all Republicans in opposition. The roll call sent the bill to a difficult fight in the Senate.

Of the Virginia delegation, all Democrats except Rep. Owen Pickett of Virginia Beach supported the bill.

President Clinton received word of his success in the Oval Office, surrounded by top administration officials.

The vote climaxed a day of debate in the House and a final flurry of phone calls from Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to wavering Democrats.

House Speaker Thomas Foley delivered a final plea for Democrats to embrace the president's economic plan, saying the vote was no less momentous than the decision to go to war in the Persian Gulf. "This is the time to justify your election," he declared.

A cheer erupted from the Democratic side of the chamber as the scoreboard showed the 218 votes needed for passage. Republicans cheered as well, as if to reaffirm their solid opposition to Clinton's tax increases.

The bill, a combination of tax increases and spending restraints, is part of a plan to reduce the deficit by about $500 billion over five years. The tax increases would exempt most low-income people, cost middle-income families perhaps $17 a month and fall heavily on the well-to-do.

The bill's fate in the Senate is uncertain. Already, some Democrats have announced their intention to strip a broad-based energy tax from the measure, and even as the House was voting Democratic Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma was telling a television interviewer of his opposition.

In the House, Democrats talked of undoing Republican economics.

"The president deserves a chance" after 12 years of Republican rule in which the well-to-do profited unfairly from government policies, said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis. Looking to the GOP side of the chamber, he demanded: "Stand aside and give it to him."

Republicans had dealt themselves out of any compromise by declaring they would support no tax increases.

by CNB