Tax cuts:The ghost of Steve Forbes
Dionne, E.J. Jr.
OF S I V E R A L N I N D S E.J. DIPNNE Jr. TAX CUTS All the public policy Bush needs When President Bush visited the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange earlier this month—the...
...I don't think that's going over very well...
...Thaf s not a golden mean...
...And if he has to settle for a smaller tax cut, he'll do what he did in Texas: Take whatever passes, embrace it—and, yes, declare victory...
...But acknowledging that your own ideas are not necessarily the best ideas is what statesmanship is all about...
...One of the senators Bush hopes to sell on his plan is Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat...
...If Bush gets this bill through, he's got a big victory...
...Why not pass a tax cut for the next year or so, a period for which the revenue forecasts are reasonably accurate...
...Now I know perfectly well that no politician should be taken too seriously when he uses the "this is what America is all about" formulation...
...That would be the conservative businessman whom Bush once saw as the main threat for the Republican nomination...
...The conservatives are using this argument to make the tax cut bigger...
...Yet this is one of those statements that has the ring of truth...
...Then there would be no need for the fig leaf of "trigger" mechanisms— in theory, they'd void future tax cuts if the surpluses didn't materialize—that promise action by future Congresses...
...This, of course, would require Bush to change gears and accept that winning on his own terms is not the most important thing...
...But their objections are also substantive: If this tax cut is really about stimulating the economy, why put off so many of the rate reductions until after Bush's first term...
...Bush spoke of his joy at being in "entrepreneurial heaven" and declared: "The entrepreneurial spirit is what America is all about...
...Well, you might ask, so what...
...TAX CUTS All the public policy Bush needs When President Bush visited the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange earlier this month—the place where they trade pork bellies and all manner of other stuff, imaginable and unimaginable—his words sounded inevitable as soon as they were out of his mouth...
...Johnson is also bothered that Bush's bipartisan happy talk is belied by the bulldozer he's using to shove Democrats his way...
...That's why more attention should be paid to criticisms of the Bush plan coming from his conservative allies...
...Yes, there are tactical games going on here— if conservatives move right, Bush can then say he's in the center...
...If s hard to see a tax plan as embodying infallible truth, and yet Bush is insisting that any plan either bigger or smaller than his own will depart from some golden mean...
...The business of the Bush administration really is business, and tax cuts are what this presidency is all about...
...Bush has been rushing from state to state in an open effort to pressure Democrats to vote for his $1.6 trillion—or, if it's counted accurately, more likely $2.1 trillion to $2.6 trillion—tax bill as he's written it...
...His approach clearly has not been bipartisan/' Johnson says...
...But Bush's hard line will make that second strategy less workable...
...Bush's problem is that he's selling a plan that his allies see as not doing what it claims to do and that his enemies see as doing far too much...
...The more he insists that his is the one and only plan, the more difficult it will be for him to claim triumph when his bill is rewritten...
...What bothers Johnson is that Bush's plan was written in response not to the policy imperatives of 2001, but to the political imperatives of 2000: "He arrived at his number because of the importance of his primary and he had to get to the tax-cutting side Commonweal 8 March 23,2001 of Steve Forbes...
...Republicans in the House of Representatives have sped through a tax bill to keep up "the momentum," as if tax policy should be made the way party primaries are won...
...In fact, they offer an excellent rationale for making it smaller, focusing the benefits on middle-class taxpayers who'll spend the money, and putting it into effect quickly...
...Thaf s the cost of policy on the fly...
...2001, Washington Post Writers Group Commonweal 9 March 23,2001...
...Bush has excellent views on baseball, but public policy should not be the same sort of game...
...And by importing to Washington the strategy of his Texas governorship— take a few big campaign promises and make them the only things his administration is about—he's creating the impression that what matters is not the actual policy, but the perception that he's won...
...Johnson is philosophical about Bush's visit to his state—it went for Bush by a large margin—and fully expects to hold out for a smaller and more targeted tax cut...
Vol. 128 • March 2001 • No. 6
