Ex-Senators to Lead Panel on Tax Code

President Bush has chosen two former senators known for their ability to cross party lines to head a nine-member panel that will develop a plan for revising the U.S. tax code, administration officials said Thursday.

The appointment of former Sens. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and John B. Breaux (D-La.) as leaders of the advisory commission, and the names of the other seven panel members, are to be announced by Bush today, a senior administration official said.

The panel’s formation set in motion the second of two big initiatives on Bush’s domestic policy agenda for the new Congress. The other is Social Security restructuring, the subject of a similar commission study three years ago and now under preliminary consideration on Capitol Hill.

Although Social Security is expected to be taken up first, the tax initiative is considered equally important to the White House, and could prove just as contentious if the administration proposes sweeping changes favored by some conservatives.

Mack, a conservative Republican respected by members of both parties in the Senate, will be chairman of the tax commission, with Breaux, a centrist Democrat and legendary dealmaker, as vice chairman. Both were members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.

The other members include former lawmakers and government officials and representatives of academia and the financial community, said the official, who declined to identify them.

The commission will be asked to consider various ways to restructure the tax code and forward its recommendations to Treasury Secretary John W. Snow this year.

The choice of Mack and Breaux was praised by conservative activists.

“Connie Mack and John Breaux both are experts on the tax code, and both are people who have proven in the past they can get things done in a bipartisan way,” said Republican fundraiser Stephen Moore. “Those are fabulous choices.”