Republican Senator Questions Tax Cut Ahead of a War

Reuters via Lycos.com ^ | 03/11/2003 | Donna Smith

[GeneD]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A moderate Republican senator who holds a crucial swing vote for President Bush's $726 billion tax cut package on Tuesday questioned whether Congress should act on it before any potential war with Iraq.

"I'm beginning to question whether we should wait until after the war with Iraq, evaluate the economy, evaluate our spending needs and priorities, and then decide whether or not an economic growth plan makes sense," Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told reporters.

She is one of a group of moderate Senate Republicans and Democrats, worried about the impact of Bush's tax cut on long-term deficits, who are working to strike a compromise on its size.

The group hopes to come up with a number on the tax cut before the Senate acts on a budget blueprint for fiscal 2004. The budget bill will set spending for the fiscal year beginning October 1 and determine the size of the tax cut that Bush and his Republican congressional allies say will give the lackluster U.S. economy a boost.

With the Republicans controlling the Senate by just one vote, Bush will need the support of Republican moderates if he hopes to win passage of the tax cut.

Maine's other Republican Senator, Olympia Snowe, has been leading the moderates' efforts to strike a compromise. She told reporters it was important to move ahead with an economic plan given the uncertainties facing the economy.

She said she would like the economic package to include money for cash-strapped states and has raised questions about the size of Bush's tax cut.

"We have to have a sense of proportion about what we can do now given all the other extenuating circumstances," Snowe told reporters.

Bush's economic package, which calls for eliminating taxes on corporate dividends paid to investors and accelerating schedule income tax cuts, is being sharply criticized by Democrats who question whether it is wise to pursue large tax cuts when the nation is on the brink of war.

A group of fiscally conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday said cutting taxes when the government was racking up record budget deficits would add trillions of dollars to the nation's debt.

"These long term tax cuts, will result in the young men and women who are going to be fighting in the deserts of Iraq having to come back to this country some day and to pay the bills for the very war that they fought," Rep. Jim Turner, a Texas Democrat, told reporters. "We think that is wrong."

[Bulldogs22]

Too many liberal grandmothers in our senate also.

[Ken522]

A moderate Republican senator .....

Nothing more needs be said about this individual - a democrat on the wrong party ticket.

[OldFriend]

Nothing like stabbing the president in the back. But then it is Maine, after all.

[montag813]

One thing I agree with is that who needs a tax cut on the stupid dividends. Using a same-amount reduction in the cap gains tax would be far more effective.

[GladesGuru]

What part of "Cut agency funding." does this RINO not understand?

[only1percent]

The tax cut bill is DOA this session, at least until the Iraq situation settles down.

Two reasons:

(1) Basic deficit concerns. Very little appetite in the Senate among conservatives to see $400BN deficits in FY 2005 or 2006 and that is definitely a possibility. (There is never any appetite among liberals for tax cuts!)

(2) Keeping open the door to short-term stimulus. Stimulus has been off the table for several months, since adding 13 weeks of emergency unemployment (taking it to 52 weeks total) was killed. The latest unemployment numbers were shocking, and oil and war expenses could be murder on inflation and interest rates, making the hoped-for "victory" boom non-existent. Late spring and summer are likely to see pushes for stimulus which are going to irresistable by anyone in Washington. Republicans will surely not repeat Bush 41's mistake of winning a war in the Middle East and then appearing indifferent to economic distress at home. To reject stimulus while passing dividend tax cuts, in the face of political pressure, is out-and-out political lunacy. (We're not talking about virtues and principals here, we're talking about the plain fact that anyone with enough taxable dividend income to see a difference is already a rocked-ribbed Republican, or an equally convinced limousine liberal.)

If the stimulus push comes, there is no way that the current tax cuts will be on the menu. It's going to be direct spending, unemployment extension, and more short-term targeted tax-cuts (reduction in payroll tax, reduction in depreciation schedules).

[2timothy3.16]

The only conservative 'Republican' on the Maine congressional deligation is Democrat Mike Mishaud Maines Second Congressional district Congressman. He is a sponsor of H.R. 1036, supported the ban on cloning, and is as good a man as Zell Miller is.

[JohnnyZ]

Michaud is not exactly conservative, but he IS pro-life and a common-sense working class guy, which puts him way out of the league of most Democrats, at least the elected ones.

Collins isn't horrible, and she's often perfectly fine, and in this case is echoing Alan Greenspan's comments, so it's hard to blame her too much. She's marginally better than Snowe.

[Sparta]

Collins is scum.

We need a conservative Senate, not just a Republican Senate.

[2timothy3.16]

we have to be looking at two differant Mike Michauds and susie collins.

Mike is turning out to be solid right wing, judging by his roll call votes.

susie is a squish left wing peice of trash, she is proabort, anti Bush tax cut, oppses drilling our own oil wells, opposes getting rid of rules placed by clinton that closed refineries, and will undoubtably vote against the ban on partial birth infanticide.

collins is a kennedy clone and a monica lewinsky to snowe.

So, you go by the party designation and I'll go by their roll call votes.

[Consort]

...Maine would be more comfortable as part of Quebec or Somalia...or both.

[The Wizard]

how did I know who it was without reading

[MrLee]

Collins IS NOT a moderate. I'm from Maine-I know. She's a Liberal with a capital L. Just like Snowe. Ugh.
Sorry.
I didn't vote for either of 'em.

[only1percent]

Yup. Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Our goal should be for every state to have as conservative a congressional delegation as can be reasonably expected >from that state<. The politics of the northeast, New Hampshire perhaps aside, just don't support the election of conservative Republicans.

The Democrats preserved their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate for 60 (House) and 54 (Senate) of 64 years between 1930 and 1994 by having just such an accomodating view of the conservative Democrats coming out of the South and certain parts of the West. While that view certainly hindered some liberal legislation, lots more liberal legislation got through on the strength of the (largely) liberal leadership which the conservative Democrats kept in power.

[cynicom]

Did they ask any MODERATE DEMOCRAT for their opinion????

I keep forgetting, all democrats are moderate