Posted on 05/22/2002 12:33:54 PM PDT by GeneD
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Citing concerns over Social Security and growing government red ink, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle vowed on Wednesday to fend off Republican efforts to make permanent the tax cuts signed into law last year.
Senate Republicans are working to attract support from a handful of potentially sympathetic Democrats to back a permanent repeal of the estate tax.
"We're going to have that fight and I'm very hopeful that we could win it," Daschle said in a question-and-answer session following a National Press Club luncheon speech. "That is, preventing making permanent those tax cuts. The first installment will be on the estate tax and I believe we can win the estate tax vote when it comes up next month."
The estate tax and other components of President Bush's $1.3 trillion tax cut signed into law last year are set to expire after 10 years. The expiration served two purposes: circumventing a Senate budget rule and holding down the overall size of the tax cut.
The White House and Republican lawmakers have made permanent extension of the cuts a top priority.
Without an extension, the tax code would revert back to its 2001 form, wiping out across-the-board cuts in personal income rates, estate-tax repeal and other measures.
Republicans have sought to brand Daschle an obstructionist for moving to block action on tax cuts and a host of other GOP initiatives.
Republican Leadership Council President Dick Zimmer, in a statement urging the Senate to take up a House-passed measure designed to accelerate relief from the so-called marriage penalty, said Daschle has turned the Senate into a "legislative black hole of inactivity on key measures."
"As the House continues to pursue President Bush's agenda of reducing the tax burden on working Americans with help from congressional Democrats, Senator Daschle seems intent on ensuring that federal tax rates remain as high as possible," said Zimmer. "Our nation and our workers are ill-served by a partisan Senate leader who is acting as though he believes high federal tax rates are somehow beneficial to the nation's economic well-being."
Making the tax cuts permanent would result in $400 billion in additional lost revenues over the next decade, Daschle said. Revenue losses would be more than $5 trillion in the following 10 years.
"I think it's going to play out politically as we expected it would. People are going to wake up to the reality that we've jeopardized their future and they're going to respond as we expect anybody would when they know that they've lost a level of security that they shouldn't have lost," he said.
Daschle said the fight against permanent tax cuts is part of a Democratic commitment to fending of GOP proposals for hundreds of billions of dollars in new tax cuts that would hurt the nation's long-term fiscal strength.
He cited successful Democratic efforts to block Republican initiatives to repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax, as well as Social Security privatization, and oil and gas exploration in part of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"Some people want to call our refusal to rubber stamp the Republican agenda obstructionism. I see it as rejecting failed ideas in the name of real solutions, and I call that progress," Daschle said.
The speech is part of a weeklong series of events by Senate Democrats marking the one-year anniversary of the decision by Vermont Sen. James Jeffords to bolt the Republican Party and become a Democrat-aligned independent, giving control of the chamber to the Democratic Party.
Daschle, who has been touted as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, said it would be premature to ponder a run for the White House at this time.
Daschle said his top political priority right now is preserving Democratic control of the Senate in this fall's midterm elections.
"I'm going to enjoy every moment as majority leader for as long as I have it and then think about the next step after this election," he said.
William L. Watts is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com.
Think forced retirement, you height challenged liberal lilliputian.
Off the side of a cliff.
I'm still smarting over the increase in the social security tax passed by congress under Clinton - it was made retroactive back to January and caused grief for a number of senior citizens.
Why isnt this sentance written, "Making the tax cuts permanent would result in $400 billion in additional tax relief over the next decade..."
Count how many times the reporter writes, Daschle said.
Does this reporter do any traditional journalism or is this a press release from the Daschle campaign office.
Now, now, no need to pollute the environment.
There Is No Such Thing As A Permanent Tax Cut!
Taxes can be raised or lowered at any time. Of a tax cut or a tax increase, the closest one to being permanent is the tax increase. I present exhibit A, the tax on your phone that was instituted to help pay for the Spanish-American war over 100 years ago and is STILL on your phone bill.
Did he just tip us off on November??
Aren't the DemocRATs still saying that that tax increase only hit the top 1% of income earners?
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