Lawmakers Blame Defeat of Budget on the Plan Itself, Summit Process : Capitol Hill: Unpopular tax hikes and spending cuts, plus voter outrage, fueled the revolt in the House. ‘Sweetheart deals’ by negotiators are cited.

Hours after the House scuttled a $500-billion deficit-cutting plan, risking a total shutdown of the federal government, Rep. Jack Buechner (R-Mo.) roamed the Capitol Friday sporting a necktie dotted with a familiar cartoon character.

“I always wear this when I think Congress has done something Mickey Mouse,” said Buechner, a supporter of the plan drafted by White House and congressional negotiators at budget summit meetings.

Both shellshocked supporters and pleased but somber opponents offered many reasons why the plan was defeated by a vote of 254 to 179. The most frequently cited reasons involved perceived flaws in the mammoth package of spending cuts and tax increases.

But there was also widespread resentment at the way the plan was put together, outside the usual congressional committee process and with the uncommon participation of Bush Administration officials.

A final clincher was the voice of the people--a barrage of telephone calls vigorously protesting particularly painful parts of the plan even as President Bush and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) sought to sell it on television Tuesday night.

“The calls did more than anything to kill the budget resolution,” said Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), who joined an extraordinary rebellion mounted by one of the top leaders of the President’s party in the House, GOP Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia.

Added Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), cocking an eye toward Nov. 6, when 33 Senate seats and all 435 House seats are up for election: “No way you can pass anything like this so close to an election--certainly nothing of this magnitude.”

He may or may not be right about that; congressional leaders hurriedly began trying to make changes in the package that might win approval. Nevertheless, it was clear that the plan in its defeated form never had a chance.

Liberal Democrats were angered by Medicare cuts and tax increases, especially on gasoline, that they felt hit the middle class harder than the wealthy. Conservative Republicans were outraged by the thought of any tax hikes at all, as well as by spending cuts they considered too small and only temporary.

Sen. Wyche Fowler Jr. (D-Ga.), a summit negotiator, vividly signaled a key problem in the package when he was asked how the tax proposals were going down among congressional Democrats.

“From a hard swallow to a gag,” he said.

There was also strong anxiety in both parties about raising taxes by $130 billion over five years at a time when the country is on the brink of an economic downturn.

“Enacting the largest tax increase in American history would be bad medicine in the teeth of a recession,” said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach).

Institutional difficulties also contributed to the defeat of the budget package.

When Bush called for budget summit meetings last May, negotiations were turned over to a small group of congressional leaders and White House officials who operated outside the customary terrain of taxing and spending committees of Congress.

Not only did powerful committee chairmen and rank-and-filers feel excluded from the process, they also charged that summit participants wound up cutting a number of “sweetheart deals” to protect their own constituencies.

For example, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) won a tax break that would help ethanol producers as well as a luxury tax exemption for private planes, both items beneficial to industries in his state.

Similarly, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) obtained a tax break for tight-sand oil drilling in his state. He also insisted on applying a 2-cents-a-gallon tax on home heating oil as a “fair share” response to the 10-cents-a-gallon increase in the gasoline tax.

That 11th-hour move infuriated legislators in the Northeast and Midwest, helping to sink the package.

Critics claimed also that the Administration’s chief negotiators--White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and Budget Director Richard G. Darman--obstructed compromises that could have produced a palatable package.

ANALYZING THE BUDGET VOTE

The status of members’ reelection prospects, and the way the House vote was trending late Thursday night, may have had an impact on the defeat of the bipartisan budget package.

VOTING YES VOTING NO Members unopposed in November 44 34 Members in tight re-election races* 0 25 Members retiring and running for governor or the Senate 14 2 Members running for the Senate 0 8 Members running for governor 0 3 Members who didn’t vote until “no” vote caught up to “yes” vote at 154-154 25 100

* Political Hotline newsletter list

Source: Poltical Hotline newsletter