You know things aren’t going well for Bush when he’s hitting the campaign trail to demand his extravagant tax cuts be made permanent and Republicans in Congress are not only planning to ignore his requests, but also do the exact opposite.
In fact, as the Washington Post reported today, key members of the congressional GOP are “preparing legislation to scale back the cuts by the end of the decade.”
Don Nickles (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said he will try this year to pass legislation to cut — but not eliminate — the tax on inherited estates. The House and Senate budget committees will begin drafting tax and spending blueprints this week that decline to extend Bush’s tax cuts beyond 2011, as the president has requested. And former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) is preparing amendments to the budget plan to demand that tax cut extensions be offset by spending cuts or other tax hikes.
“Everything is on the table, ranging from changes in how we do business around here to the tax cuts themselves, particularly as it regards higher-income Americans,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Although not endorsed by the Senate or House Republican leadership, the discussions mark a growing shift in GOP and conservative attitudes about taxes and spending as Congress begins to grapple with projections of record deficits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office told Congress last Friday that Bush’s 2005 budget proposal would generate $2.75 trillion of additional federal debt over the next decade, while failing to cut the deficit in half by 2009, as the president has promised.
The Post article suggests several key GOP players are balking on Bush’s fiscal fiasco and have indicated that “they are willing to reexamine the tax cuts.”
This is a dramatic turn for the Republicans in Congress. While Nickles had been insisting that he would settle for nothing less than a full repeal of the estate tax, he is now saying that “may not be realistic.” While Domenici expressed no concerns about paying for Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, now he’s working on legislation that would require Bush to offset his future cuts with “spending cuts or other tax hikes.” While House Budget Committee chairman Chris Shays (R-Conn.) backed all three of Bush’s tax cut proposals in recent years, he’s come around to saying it “would be foolish to extend all the tax cuts now.”
And they’re not the only ones. The Hill reported a couple of weeks ago that a centrist group of moderate Senate Republicans are considering a plan to block Bush’s call for making his tax cuts permanent.
Since Bush has made the tax cut issue a major aspect of his re-election drive, the centrists’ stance could prove to be a political liability to the president.
While none of these centrists has voiced direct opposition to any of the tax cuts, members of the group are nevertheless gauging the political climate in the Senate while eyeing the forecasted deficits. If they end up adopting a hard position against any of the tax cuts, it would pose a major obstacle to Bush, who likely will need 60 votes for a Senate victory….
[Sen. Olympia] Snowe said the centrists have been meeting to discuss the issues, while still maintaining a low profile. “It’s not that we’ve been quiet,” she said. “We’ve been talking about it.”
Not only is it encouraging to hear a few responsible GOP lawmakers publicly resist Bush’s reckless fiscal policies, it is also the kind of dynamic that could have dramatic political consequences.
The more congressional Republicans face budget realities and remain committed to some semblance of responsible governing, the harder it will be for Bush to use this as a campaign issue this year. It’s not as if Bush can reasonably argue that Kerry and the congressional Dems are fighting his tax cut plans when members of his own party are insisting that the administration is wrong.