Bush Speaks; Legislators in GOP Jump

With a single utterance from 3,000 miles away, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has transformed a congressional debate over aid to the working poor, cowing GOP leaders and demonstrating the dramatic power shift within the party.

House Republican leaders were clearly on the defensive Friday as they reacted to Bush’s blunt statement Thursday denouncing a GOP-crafted plan to alter a tax break for low-income working families. The leaders said that the plan--an effort to save money in the new federal budget--would be reconsidered and they acknowledged that it is in jeopardy.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) told reporters that adverse reaction to the proposal, highlighted by the Texas governor’s comments, “means you have to assess the situation.” He conceded that the plan might not have the votes to pass.

More broadly, the reaction showed how Bush, as the clear front-runner for the Republican nomination, increasingly is able to influence the party’s agenda.

“Austin [Bush’s home] says jump and the Republican establishment--including its congressional leadership--asks how high,” said GOP analyst William Kristol.

There was no question that House leaders were taken aback by Bush’s remarks, delivered during a campaign stop in San Jose. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) took the unusual step of calling a special press conference to defend the GOP’s proposal, under which those eligible for the earned-income tax credit would receive monthly payments rather than the lump sum now paid once a year.

Hastert said that his staff had floated the proposal earlier to Bush’s staff and “we didn’t hear anything back.”

But opposition to the proposal grew Friday among the House GOP rank and file and after meeting with these members, Hastert said: “We need to assess, to see where we’re at.”

And the plan’s prospects suffered a second blow Friday when another GOP presidential contender, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, joined Bush in opposing it.

“If our goal is to have lower-income Americans lifted up into the middle class, this is the wrong way to do it,” McCain said.

Marshall Wittman, political analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, predicted that the proposal will end up “deader than Elvis.”

Analysts also suggested that Bush’s independent stance may embolden the GOP rank and file in Congress to rein in their leadership on other fiscal issues.

Wittman said that House leaders are likely to “step up their coordination with Austin” as they seek solutions to their legislative dilemmas. “This has really embarrassed them,” he added. “It’s very clear that it was a unique moment” spotlighting Bush’s clout within the party.

President Clinton could not resist intensifying the Republicans’ pain. “I was delighted to see that [Bush] . . . finally had joined our position on this,” he said before leaving for a trip to California.

Trying to keep their proposed 2000 budget from using money in the Social Security Trust Fund, House GOP leaders have resorted to a number of accounting gimmicks, from classifying some routine items as “emergency spending,” which is exempt from budget controls, to pushing some spending into the next fiscal year.

All have brought derision, not only from Democrats but from nonpartisan budget-watchers as well.

The proposal involving the earned-income tax credit is essentially an accounting ploy that would save an estimated $8.7 billion in the current federal budget year, which began Friday. Monthly payments would mean that checks sent to an estimated 20 million recipients for the last three months of 2000 would not be counted in this fiscal year.

The Republican House leaders asserted that the change would not cost recipients anything because they still would receive the same amount of money. But Democrats responded that converting to monthly installments would deny recipients the type of large payments they might need for expensive purchases, such as cars.

Bush, who has made “compassionate conservatism” his campaign’s theme, signaled on Thursday that he agreed with the critics.

“I don’t think they ought to balance their budget on the backs of the poor,” Bush said of the GOP plan. “I’m concerned for someone who is moving from near poverty to middle-class”--the income-group affected by the earned-income tax credit.

House leaders on Thursday initially sought to deflect Bush’s comments. “It’s obvious Mr. Bush needs a little education on how Congress works,” snapped House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who sponsored the proposal.

But by Friday their tone had changed, as Bush’s remarks resonated with other House GOP members.

Some political analysts expect Bush to make similar departures on other issues in the months to come--both to show his independence and to bolster the “compassionate conservative” image.

“It’s consistent with the kind of appeal his polls show will help him in the general election,” said Earl Black, a Rice University political analyst who has followed Bush’s candidacy closely. “I think most of [the House Republican leaders] would understand.”

Indeed, there was little indication that Bush’s criticism of the tax credit proposal would cause a major rupture with GOP congressional leaders, especially since many of them have pinned their hopes of retaining control of the House on his election.

“It’s too small an issue,” Rep. Steven T. Kuykendall (R-Rancho Palos Verdes), an ardent Bush supporter, said Friday.

Added Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Riverside): “I think we all want to go in the same direction--it’s just a matter of how we get there.”

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Times political writer Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this story.