Bush Vows to Stand Firm on Tax Cut Plan

President Bush on Saturday urged Americans to lobby their elected representatives to back his $1.6-trillion tax cut proposal, launching a concerted drive for a measure that faces potentially serious opposition in Congress.

Back home from his first trip abroad as president, Bush quickly refocused his attention on domestic affairs, proposing an unspecified boost to education spending and preparing to sell his tax cut agenda in America’s heartland later this week.

“This is our chance to act, and we cannot let it pass,” he said in his weekly radio address.

Bush spoke from his ranch near here, a day after returning from a meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox in San Cristobal, Mexico.

Bush’s renewed focus on budget and tax matters marks a new phase in his 4-week-old presidency.

Having completed his maiden foreign trip and methodically laid out the key planks of his domestic agenda, the president is poised to return to the campaign trail to generate public support for his initiatives.

Besides tax cuts, Bush has promised education reform, upgrading the military and expanding access to federal funds for religious organizations that perform social services.

Next week, Bush is to deliver his first address to Congress, followed the next day by the submission of his first budget to Capitol Hill.

“I’ll be taking this case in person to a joint session of Congress,” Bush said Saturday.

Despite fresh signs in recent days that his tax plan may not win majority support in the closely divided Senate, Bush has struck a near-defiant tone--most notably Friday during a joint news conference with Fox, when asked about the prospects of his tax cut bill’s passage without significant concessions.

“I believe when it’s all said and done that we’re going get a tax bill out of the House and the Senate that will be at the level I think it ought to be,” Bush said, adding:

“Washington . . . has got a unique way of asking presidents to negotiate with themselves. And that’s not what is going to happen in this administration.”

Bush plans to take his tax cut campaign to Ohio, Missouri and Tennessee on Tuesday and Wednesday. With some polls showing a mixed public reaction to the proposal, the president faces the added challenge of winning over the majority of voters who on Nov. 7 sided with Democrat Al Gore, who had derided Bush’s proposal as “a risky tax scheme.”

Since the disputed election was settled, however, growing signs of an economic slowdown and an endorsement of substantial tax cuts from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan have breathed new life into Bush’s plan.

Still, many Democrats are wary of such a large tax cut, and some want to attach a “trigger” mechanism to the 10-year tax cut plan to ensure that the programmed reductions take place only if certain economic performance indices and budget surplus projections are met.

More recently, Republican Sens. James M. Jeffords of Vermont and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island backed that line of thinking.

Thus Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) warned Bush during a Thursday meeting at the White House that Senate Republicans were at least two votes shy of being able to pass the tax cut plan.

That rift among the GOP has invigorated congressional Democrats, who are pushing for a smaller tax cut geared more toward middle- and lower-income taxpayers.

On Saturday, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) reiterated that theme during the Democratic response to Bush’s weekly address.

“We believe we should put more money back in people’s pockets through a tax cut and that this cut should be fair to every parent, child and family in America,” Rangel said.

“The president’s plan is part of a budget that leaves too much priority on tax cuts for the wealthy, while at the same time jeopardizing needed investments in Social Security, education and health care,” he added.

Rangel predicted that Bush’s plan would “lead us back to the deficits, high interest rates and high unemployment that we faced at the end of the last Bush administration.”

But the president gave no ground Saturday.

“I strongly believe we should return that money, the leftover money, to you, the American people, in the form of tax relief. It is, after all, your money,” Bush said.

He insisted that his tax cut plan is “a fair one” because it would lower rates “for all taxpayers.”

And he said it is “pro-growth” because it “gives our economy a jump-start by leaving more money in the hands of those who have earned it.”

Bush also revealed that his budget blueprint will include for the Department of Education “a higher-percentage increase than any other federal department.”

“Money isn’t the whole answer. High standards and accountability matter most. But if we’re serious about reforms, like early reading and teacher training, testing on reading and math in every school, the federal budget must reflect these commitments,” added the president, who did not divulge specific amounts.

“We’ll pay for new testing programs and new reading and intervention programs . . . We will spend more on our public schools, but we’re going to expect more in return, and this will improve the lives of countless children.”