No Cheers, Yet

By a vote of 297 to 120, the House this week passed the Knutson $6.5 billion tax-cut bill. Bolstered by 63 Democratic rebels, Republicans piled up a margin large enough to override an expected presidential veto with 19 votes to spare. Democrats didn't have a chance. Just before the final vote, the House had rejected their substitute bill, which would have made up for revenue losses with a new excess-profits tax.

The Knutson bill would take 7,400,000 low-income taxpayers off the rolls entirely, by raising personal exemptions from $500 to $600. It would also: 1) apply the community-property principle to all states; 2) cut all taxes on a sliding scale from 30% to 10%; 3) provide special exemptions for the blind and the aged.

The bill then went to the Senate. But House Republicans were saving their cheers. In the Senate, G.O.P. leaders were getting ready to whittle the size of the cut, would probably not make up their minds on the bill's final form until ERP was out of the way--which might not be until May.

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