The First 100 Days: President Hopes to Show Congress, America How Tax Cuts Would Bring Growth
JASON CARROLL, CNN ANCHOR: It is day two of President Bush's tax plan promotion week, and today the president hopes to show how his plan would spark economic growth. CNN White House correspondent Major Garrett has the story for us this morning. Good morning, Major.</s>MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jason. Well, the careful choreography of the campaign for the Bush tax cut continues today as the president, in his only public event, travels to northern Virginia to visit an independent toy store there. He will meet seven other small-business folks from northern Virginia and the surrounding area to emphasize the benefits that small business owners would reap from his tax cut, primarily a cut in the estate tax or the inheritance tax and also some favorable treatment that small businesses would receive under the Bush tax cut -- which, of course, is $1.6 trillion over 10 years. It would take the five tax brackets that now exist in America, trim them down to four, giving a tax cut for every American, the wealthiest and the lowest income. In an event here at the White House yesterday, the president explained why every American is entitled to a tax cut.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Most families over a lifetime will move through a couple of different tax brackets. Many families will move through all four as they move up the ladder of economic success, and then back down as they retire and leave the workforce. Our tax code should not punish success at any stage of life.</s>GARRETT: That is the central message from the Bush White House: that a tax cut should benefit all Americans. Democrats on Capitol Hill, however, believe that this tax cut is tilted too much in favor of the wealthy. They would like to see a different shift in priorities, one targeted more toward the middle class and lower-income Americans. The Bush White House right now pushing forward, it believes, in the end, very confidently, they will get the better part of that $1.6 trillion tax cut -- Jason.</s>CARROLL: All right, thanks very much, Major, coming to us live this morning from the White House. Now we want to get the view from the Bush plan from Capitol Hill. Let's turn it over now to CNN's Kate Snow. Good morning, Kate.</s>KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jason. President Bush's plan arrives here officially on Thursday, as you've heard. But already it is the talk of Congress, Republican leaders in the House scheduled to meet later on today to try to figure out how they're going to work with this plan, what are they going to do with the president's outline -- will they follow exactly what the president says, or will they vary a little bit from that? The Republican Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, who will be responsible for sort of guiding this tax bill through the House, has not yet endorsed it, so still some discussion going on even on the Republican side of the aisle. Some Republicans favor adding even more tax breaks to the plan: They talk about adding benefits for businesses, not just individuals. So that will be a discussion up here. Now, on the other side of the aisle, Democrats, as Major mentioned, are already expressing some concerns about -- that they have with the Bush tax plan. They're trying to figure out how best they can battle against President Bush's plan. I'm told by several Democratic aides here on the Hill that there's a lot of discussion going on behind closed doors as to how big of a leap they should take off of what President Bush has done: Should they come close to President Bush, or should they come up with a very different sort of plan on their own? As of right now, Democrats seem to favor a package about half the size of what President Bush is proposing, Democrats supporting a tax cut that would be geared more towards the middle class, because they feel the president's plan is too geared at the -- at the very wealthy.</s>SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D), MINORITY LEADER: If you make over $300,000 a year, this tax cut means you get to buy a new Lexis. If you make $50,000 a year, you get to buy a muffler on your used car. That's the difference; that's what we're talking about here.</s>SNOW: Now, later this morning, the Senate president, also know as the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, will be here on Capitol Hill. He'll be talking both with Republicans and also with some Democrats, specifically with the Blue Dog Democrats, as they're called -- those are mainly Southern, more conservative, more moderate Democrats. They do not favor President Bush's plan, Mr. Cheney coming over to try to convince them otherwise. Back to you, Jason.</s>CARROLL: All right, thanks very much, Kate Snow -- coming to us this morning from Capitol Hill.