Bush: Tax Cut Support Grows

Democrats Fire Back: Current Package Misguided

(CBS)  President Bush said Saturday momentum is with him as he seeks to steer his $1.6 billion, 10-year tax-cut plan through a hesitant Senate, but he indicated there is room for some compromise.

"Support for tax relief is building," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address. "I feel the momentum for tax relief everywhere I travel in this country."

At the same time, he indicated in separate interviews with The Washington Post and The New York Times for Saturday editions that he may have to adjust his tax cut proposal to win Senate passage.

"Many senators tell me we have to work together and make it so I can support it," Mr. Bush told the Times. "My answer to all the members is that first and foremost I hope they will take a look at the rationale for what we've done. But I understand there are 100 different opinions about one proposal."

The Times said Republicans who have consulted with the White House have identified two areas of possible compromise: reducing the amount by which the top income tax rate would drop and scaling back the estate tax rather than repealing it.

The Bush Tax Plan

What's In It For Me? Find out how much you could save this year and once the tax plan has been fully implemented.

Mr. Bush is so optimistic about prevailing on his basic ideas, however, that he is already considering another round of tax cuts in 2002, the Post reported.

Indications of compromise weren't evident in the president's radio remarks or the Democratic response by Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, his party's second-ranking leader in the Senate.

The House on Thursday passed a $958 billion income-tax provision, something Mr. Bush called "a large step toward the first broad tax reductions in a generation."

Reid agreed that tax reductions are necessary. But he cast Mr. Bush's overall proposal as imprudent, calling it "a massive and irresponsible tax cut designed to give huge amounts of money to a handful of (Republicans') rich campaign donors."

"We can't predict the weather tomorrow, but the Republicans think they can predict the economy 10 years from tomorrow," Reid said.

"If they're even a little bit wrong, then we'll be driven right back into a deficit, and all of your had work to balance our budget over the last decade will disappear like so much sand in the wind," he said.

At nearly all his recent stops, Mr. Bush has pointed to "tax families" he said provided real-life examples of those who would benefit from his plans.

---

Click here to see your cut under Bush's plan

---

Reid turned the tactic against Mr. Bush. He contended the average hotel worker in Nevada who is married with two children makes $25,000 a year. Under Bush's plan, he said the worker would get "not one cent in tax relief."

"Now take a rich stockbroker who made millions trading other people's money," Reid said. "Under the Republican plan, he'd win the lottery. I don't think that's fair."

But Mr. Bush insisted the "sputtering" economy needs the shot in the arm his proposal could supply.

"Economic growth has stalled. Consumer confidence is falling," he said. "... 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."

Mr. Bush implored his audiences this week to pressure their senators to back his plan.

At one stop Friday, he said: "I am here today in Lafayette, Louisiana, to explain a commonsense budget, and if you like what you hear, you might decide to maybe e-mail or call some of those who represent you and let them hear from you."

He made measurable headway on one front - the public relations battle.

Mr. Bush garnered enormous local news media attention wherever he went. In Lafayette, stories on his tax cut proposal merited four front-page stories in the city's newspaper, including a feature on his "tax family."

Yet as CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller reportsv, Mr. Bush is relying heavily on the influence and experience of his Vice President, Dick Cheney, to get his plan passed. Earlier in the week, Cheney gave the White House a scare, when chest pains forced him to undergo another angioplasty to clear a blocked coronary artery.

Cheney's condition raises new questions of whether he should cut back on his job, and what impact that might have on the Bush presidency.

"If for some reason his ability to carry out his role as the point man in this administration on Capitol Hill ...if that position is compromised, then I think George Bush has significant problems," said Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst.

That might explain the president's jubilation when Cheney quickly came back to work.

In fact, Cheney says he has no intention of reducing his workload. He is well aware of his importance to the president, and despite concerns, he says the job isn't causing him undue stress. In fact, he says he loves it.