Budget Bluster And Bombast

House Republicans are planning a floor vote next week on the cigarette tax increase and other revenue raisers in President Clinton's budget, putting on the spot Democrats who advocate higher taxes in order to boost spending.

Â"I'd like to see if the president's Democratic brethren would be willing to support his tax increases,Â" wondered Rep. Jerry Weller, Republican of Illinois.

The move Wednesday came as the GOP leadership struggled to pass routine spending bills without dipping into the Social Security trust fund. Mr. Clinton also says he wants to keep those funds safe, but he has proposed 75 tax increases totaling a net $89.7 billion over 10 years to generate the revenue needed for more spending on health, education and other areas.

The PresidentÂ's budget includes a 55-cents-a-pack cigarette tax increase, a measure closing corporate tax shelters, and a $6.6 billion reinstatement of a corporate environmental cleanup tax, among others.

Several Republican officials said the GOP leadership was confident Clinton's tax increases would be voted down on the House floor, just as his overall budget was resoundingly defeated earlier this year. House leaders have decided to hold the vote but have yet to determine the mechanics of bringing it to the floor.

Democrats and the White House today dismissed the the Republican plan as gimmickry.

Â"It sounds like, I'm afraid, another stunt, another effort at political advantage rather than sitting down and trying to figure out a budget,Â" said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri.

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt says the Republicans are pulling a Â"stuntÂ"

Rep. Bill Archer, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, released an analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation showing that people earning less than $10,000 would see an effective 15 percent federal tax increase, compared with a 5 percent average increase for all U.S. taxpayers.

Â"Raising taxes to afford the extra spending the president wants is not the appropriate thing to do,Â" Archer, Republican of Texas, told reporters. Â"It hits the hardest on the poor.Â"

A few hours later, a bipartisan group of tobacco-state House members said they would fight any effort by Clinton or Democratic congressional leaders to use the cigarette tax to finance government spending or new programs such as Medicare prescription drugs.

Â"Enough is enough. That's the message the administration needs to hear,Â" said Rep. Mike McIntyre, Democrat of North Carolia.

White House spokesman Barry Toiv, noting that a new Philip Morris Internet site finally acknowledges the health hazards of smoking, said Clinton will absolutely continue to push for the tax increase.

Â"Raising the price of tobacco is good health policy that will discourage young people from smoking,Â" Toiv said. Â"On a day that Philip Morris is admitting that smoking causes cancer, it's hard to believe that Chairman Archer still wants to protect this industry.Â"

Meanwhile, House Democrats are seizing every opportunity to push a bill that would crack down on abuse of corporate tax shelters.

Even some Republicans are giving the measure a look, partly because it would raise an estimated $10.6 billion in revenue over 10 years and help ease this year's budget crunch.

Business interests are intent on quietly killing the bill, fearing it might interfere with legitimate business transactions and give the IRS too much power.

Â"It's all very much behind closed doors,Â" said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas, prime author of the bill.

So far this year, Democrats have tried to use the money Doggett's bill would raise as a way to pay for a tax cut, a managed care reform bill and a measure extending several expiring corporate tax credits. They are considering it as a way to pay for a proposed tax cut for businesses to ease costs from a $1 increase in the minimum wage.

Republican Rep. Charlie Norwood of Georgia, the main GOP sponsor of the managed care measure that passed the House, promoted the tax shelter crackdown to help offset its costs.

Â"There is a large difference in what you call a tax increase and stopping bogus tax shelters,Â" Norwood said during House Rules Committee debate on his bill. Â"We are trying to keep them from cheating the system.Â"

Archer said Wednesday his panel will hold more hearings so Congress can Â"find the right approach to where we don't eliminate legitimate business practices but we do get at any abuses.Â"

The Doggett bill's central point is that, to be legal, a transaction should have some reasonable economic substance other than avoidance of taxes.

Among other things, it would increase the penalty for tax underpayment from 20 percent to 40 percent for transactions that fail the test and would eliminate exceptions that protect company executives if a deal is OK'd by an attorney.