| Carl P. Leubsdorf: Politics still ain't beanbag 04/12/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News In last fall's campaign, George W. Bush said he would seek an across-the-board tax cut, education reform and increased defense spending.
He also promised to bring a new tone to Washington by replacing the acrimony of the Clinton years with more bipartisanship and a spirit of compromise.
So far, he is doing better with the policies than with the politics.
His tax cut plan, despite being scaled back 25 percent by the Senate, is likely to be substantially approved. So, too, are most of his education proposals and defense requests.
But despite Mr. Bush's initial strategy of meeting Democratic as well as Republican lawmakers and taking advantage of his friendly, open manner, the budget debate indicated he has done little to reduce the underlying partisan tone.
He also has shown little sign of compromise except when forced to retreat because he lacked the votes. And he has created some confusion by seeking to change the rationale for his tax cut plan while sticking with the specifics of the 15-month-old proposal.
Ever since the economy began to soften late last year, Mr. Bush has been trying to use that to increase public support for cutting taxes. "We need significant tax relief, and we need it now," he told the nation's editors last week.
The only problem is that his tax cut proposal doesn't provide any short-term economic stimulus; much of the reduction comes in future years.
The plan passed last week did include $85 billion for earlier tax relief. But it may be many months before any tax cut is enacted, in part because of the president's opposition to passing any short-term tax break separate from his plan for a long-term reduction.
The fact that the Senate-passed budget included only about three-fourths of the $1.6 trillion that Mr. Bush set as his goal for tax cuts generated widespread analysis that he had suffered a major setback.
The White House disputed that contention, with some justification, pointing out that the tax cut is far larger than the $900 billion urged by the Democrats. In the end, it said, the total will be close to $1.6 trillion.
But that optimistic spin doesn't explain why the administration felt it was so important to pressure senators from both parties in an all-out effort to prevent any cutback.
That effort included visits by Mr. Bush to the states of conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans seeking to generate public pressure on them for the tax cut, the trade-offs the White House offered to wavering senators during the debate and some even more unusual moves aimed at specific lawmakers.
Among them were a phone call to the Omaha World-Herald in which budget director Mitchell Daniels sought to pressure freshman Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson and calls by White House chief of staff Andy Card to newspapers in Vermont and Rhode Island in a futile effort to reverse opposition from GOP Sens. James Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee.
Louisiana Democrat John Breaux, a prime target of White House wooing, suggested that the administration would have done better by working with those lawmakers instead of trying to pressure them.
The episode raised questions of whether the White House drive to pass its tax bill without cuts and its methods have left hard feelings that could create problems.
After all, despite generally favorable press notices and a relatively trouble-free launch, Mr. Bush doesn't enjoy overwhelming popularity. His job approval has been in the 50s, similar to Bill Clinton's numbers during his difficult early months.
And Mr. Bush has given political foes some ammunition with his conservative actions on several issues, especially the environment.
Congress still is likely to pass a significant tax cut this year as well as other major Bush proposals.
But that may stem less from anything Mr. Bush has done than from the fact that Republicans now control the White House as well as both houses of Congress.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington Bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is .
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