Bush Signals He’ll Work With Senate on Tax Plan

President Bush is holding fast to the overall scope of his $1.6-trillion, 10-year tax cut plan, but he is willing to consider modifications as the measure moves to the Senate, his spokesman said Saturday.

Two days after the House of Representatives approved the centerpiece of the plan, a reduction in income tax rates, attention shifted toward the Senate, where the results are much less certain than they were in the House.

The House approved the plan, 230-198, in a vote cast almost entirely along party lines Thursday. The Senate is evenly split, 50-50, between Democrats and Republicans.

Building his argument for the tax reduction on uncertainty about economic growth, Bush said in a radio address that was recorded before he began a weekend vacation at his ranch near here: “We must put more fuel into the engine of this economy, and that’s what my tax relief package will do.”

With the economy “sputtering” and growth “stalled,” he said, “we must act, and act now, to get ahead of this problem and blunt or reverse this slowdown. And the best way to respond is to get more money into the hands of Americans, who will buy products and build businesses and create jobs.

“High tax rates can make a downturn deeper; they can make a slowdown longer. A time of economic stagnation is exactly the moment when tax relief is most urgent,” the president said.

Swift Action Urged

The Senate has been aiming to finish work on the tax plan by the beginning of July.

Urging speedy action, Bush argued that the budget he has proposed for fiscal 2002 pays down the national debt, puts aside nearly $1 trillion as a contingency fund, and “we still have surplus money left over for broad, fair, responsible tax relief.”

Reports are circulating in Washington that the president may be amenable to negotiations on the cut in the top tax rate, which his proposal would drop from 39% to 33%. The measure the House approved provided just such a reduction.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said, “The president is going to fight for the tax plan passed by the House.”

But, offering a signal that Bush will at least entertain other ideas, the spokesman said, “He has said he will listen to people. . . . The voting is a little ways off.”

Did he mean to signal that Bush was willing to compromise?

“It signals he’s listening,” Fleischer said, adding that the run-up to a Senate vote was “the second step in a long process.”

At the same time, Fleischer suggested that Bush had little reason to compromise: He said that, as a candidate, Bush was told to give up on tax cuts because voters were not supportive. Then he was told to scale back his plan, the spokesman said.

Now the House has approved a major element in Bush’s plan.

“As far as he is concerned, the movement is in his direction,” Fleischer added.

Aide Gets Ranch Tour

Bush arrived at the ranch Friday evening. He plans to remain until Monday morning, when he will fly to Panama City, Fla., for a speech on the military budget. He returns to Washington that night.

At the ranch, which he is visiting for the second time during the first seven weeks of his presidency, Bush went for a three-mile run and spent much of the morning roaming his property with Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, Fleischer said.

The spokesman said the president and Card rode about on a “Gator,” a miniature vehicle that he portrayed as a cross between a golf cart and a pickup. Later, the president graduated to a truck.

“He’s driving his pickup truck as we speak,” Fleischer said at midafternoon.

At midday, Bush’s parents, former President George Bush and Barbara Bush, arrived for a visit.

The president’s primary ranch chore, according to Fleischer, was clearing cedar trees and branches, which apparently grow like weeds and compete with other trees.

“Cedar soaks out a lot of water and inhibits growth of other trees,” Fleischer said after getting a report from the ranch. But chopping them individually, he said, is “like emptying the ocean with buckets.”