Bush Disavows Aide--Tax Hikes Are Still on the Table

The White House today disavowed comments by a senior Administration official ruling out tax hikes at the upcoming budget summit and said President Bush assured congressional leaders that nothing is off the bargaining table.

Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the remarks--widely understood to be by White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu--did not reflect Bush’s position and that the official did not speak for the President.

The official was quoted as saying that the White House would say “no” to any tax increases proposed by Democrats at the budget summit, which begins Tuesday.

“That’s crazy,” Fitzwater declared.

Fitzwater said Bush called House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) this morning to assure him he had not changed his position.

Meanwhile, Bush came under fire from congressional Democrats for failing to make his position clear on the issue of higher taxes.

“It is time for the President to speak,” said Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.). “What is it that he would bring forward? The President waits, but the nation deserves to hear.”

Although Administration aides have asserted that the negotiations would have “no preconditions,” Bush himself has not yet spoken out on whether he would accept a tax increase as part of a deficit-cutting package.

Democratic skepticism toward the summit appeared to grow today after a “senior Administration official” was quoted in today’s editions of the Washington Post and the Washington Times as suggesting that the White House would reject any attempt by Democrats to propose a tax increase.

The official was identified as speaking on a plane from Costa Rica to Washington with Barbara Bush and Sununu. The official was further described as “the main White House link to conservatives.”

Sununu, who is generally viewed as conservatives’ main pipeline into the White House, was the only senior White House official on the First Lady’s plane.

Other passengers on the plane said Sununu was the speaker.

The official was quoted as saying: “We’re allowing them (Democrats) to bring their good arguments for taxes to the table. . . . They were not persuasive last time and are likely not to be persuasive again.

“But if they want to come to the table and say they put (tax increases) there, it is their prerogative to put them on the table, and it’s our prerogative to say no. And I emphasize the no.”

The comments appeared to contradict earlier White House assertions that nothing was off the table on budget talks, including taxes.

Fitzwater, while not willing to state publicly that the speaker was Sununu, said the official was not speaking for Bush.

“I speak for the President. It’s as simple as that,” he declared.

Fitzwater said he had spoken to Bush directly today and was told by the President that “his position is no preconditions.”