A Taxing Compromise?

President Bush is expressing a readiness to basically split the difference on his centerpiece plan for cutting taxes, bowing to the reality of a Senate that is unwilling to accept his proposed $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax reduction.

Mr. Bush's willingness to bargain on his top economic priority comes as House and Senate leaders resume trying to strike a compromise on a 2002 budget in a Thursday meeting.

A House-approved budget included Mr. Bush's entire tax proposal plus his plan to restrict spending increases for many programs to 4 percent next year. The Senate, which is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, endorsed a $1.2 trillion tax cut and doubled the spending growth to 8 percent.

In an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, Mr. Bush acknowledged that he would have to give on the tax cut.

"We've come from the ideological to the practical and I'm a practical man," he said, adding, "It's going to be less than 1.6 (trillion dollars) and greater than 1.2 and we've got to figure out how to make it work."

The president went even further as he met one-by-one Wednesday with five moderate Democratic senators at the White House in hopes of winning their support for boosting the Senate-approved tax figure.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., among those who met with Mr. Bush in the Oval Office, said the president told her he could only go so far in reducing the tax cut's size before he begins losing Republican votes in the House, which the GOP controls only narrowly.

Vice President Dick Cheney and White House chief of staff Andrew Card also attended the meetings with Democrats.

Democrats seemed to be resisting Mr. Bush's offer, indicating that completing a compromise budget could take time.

One of them, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he urged Mr. Bush "to take a long, hard look" at the lesser amount the Senate had approved.

"He wasn't too happy with that," Baucus said.

Democrats said they want more of the tax cut distributed to lower-income people than Mr. Bush has proposed, plus more spending for agriculture, education, prescription drug benefits and other programs. Mr. Bush wants to let spending for many programs grow by 4 percent next year, half the level the Senate approved in its budget and well belorecent annual increases.

With two moderate Republicans in the evenly divided Senate reluctant to support a deeper tax reduction, many GOP leaders and White House officials believe they will need support from some Democrats to increase the tax cut's size.

Though Democratic leaders backed a $750 billion tax cut, 15 Senate Democrats voted to approve a GOP-written budget earlier this month permitting $1.2 trillion in tax reductions. It is members of that group that the White House is trying to persuade to go even higher.

Other moderate Democratic senators who met Wednesday with Mr. Bush included Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Max Cleland of Georgia.

Sen. John Breaux, D-La., who has emerged as the leader of the centrists, had dinner with the president at the White House Tuesday evening.

After their visits with Mr. Bush, a half-dozen Democratic senators met among themselves. Torricelli said the group agreed "to stay together" in the effort to shape the budget.

Meanwhile, House-Senate bargainers held a public meeting to formally begin their effort to reach a compromise on the budget. The near-$2 trillion fiscal plan is for 2002, which begins Oct. 1.

The budget is a guide Congress will use as it writes bills that actually will finance programs and cut taxes. GOP leaders hope to complete a compromise and push it through Congress next week.

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