Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- May 22, 1998
TOP POLITICAL STORY
GOP budget plan's
potential is political,
not legislative
By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A $101 billion budget-cutting plan cleared by the House Budget Committee on Wednesday gives Republicans a politically popular agenda to run on this fall, but it has no chance of passing Congress, GOP strategists said Thursday.
"There's room in a $1.7 trillion budget for these spending and tax cuts, but with an 11-seat Republican margin in the House, do we have a sustainable vote to get these spending cuts in the face of a certain veto? Probably not," said a House GOP leadership official.
House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich, Ohio Republican, produced a five-year plan to put House Republicans on record for reducing the size of government in order to make deeper tax cuts. However, House GOP officials said Thursday that his plan does not have the support of a majority of his party, which remains divided over its budget strategy and even more fearful of giving President Clinton and the Democrats an issue to hammer them with in the November elections.
And even if Mr. Kasich is able to attract enough GOP support in the House, the budget bill faces strong resistance in the Senate, which has approved its own five-year plan that calls for a much smaller $30 billion in tax cuts over this period.
Mr. Kasich, who may become a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, acknowledged Thursday that he will fine-tune his budget plan to win the backing of a majority of his colleagues. Supporters of his plan say the GOP needs to draw a sharper contrast with the Democrats on cutting spending and taxes to energize the base of the party.
The budget-cutting package designed by Mr. Kasich seeks to cut income taxes by a similar amount, with the aim of ending the marriage penalty imposed on couples who both work and who end up paying more in taxes on their joint return than if they had filed separately.
GOP polls show that ending the marriage penalty is popular with voters, and whatever happens in this session, GOP leaders think it will be an effective issue to use against the Democrats in the campaign.
Meantime, House Speaker Newt Gingrich Thursday said that it may be possible to expand the $101 billion in tax cuts in the future if the budget surpluses turn out to be much larger than previously forecast.
Both Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Kasich are opposed to spending the budget surpluses -- which some estimates say could total more than $1 trillion over the next five years. But the speaker's remarks to reporters Thursday suggested that he was shifting his position toward using some surpluses for tax cuts -- a policy being championed by conservative economic analysts like Larry Kudlow.
"This is no time to be timid on tax cuts," Mr. Kudlow advised GOP lawmakers in an analysis circulated on Capitol Hill. "We believe that at least half of this $1 trillion windfall -- and preferably all of it -- should be returned to taxpayers via a very large tax cut enacted immediately."
But Mr. Kasich's budget proposes that the GOP cut spending very cautiously, putting off three-fourths of its cuts until the last three years of the plan. He would cut only $4.4 billion next year, $10 billion in 1999, and postpone $75 billion in cuts until after the year 2000.
"Kasich has a lot of conservative support for his plan but he doesn't have all of the conservatives. Some are saying, 'Let's not give an embattled president an issue to use against us,'" said the House GOP official.
"The goals are great, but the votes are not there to sustain his budget plan in the appropriations process. This is not a done deal," said a House Appropriations Committee official.Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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