Saying One Thing, Doing Another

By Karen Tumulty/Washington

Considering how enthusiastic George W. Bush has been about tax cuts, you might have thought he would be delighted to hear that his fellow Republicans were actually about to pass one, especially one that puts the party firmly on the side of marriage and family. But the Texas Governor did not exactly celebrate last week as the House overwhelmingly approved $182 billion in breaks for couples. "I haven't seen the details, but I, ah, I want the, the Republicans in Washington not to be intimidated by polls," Bush said. "I am going to, I think, focus on cutting the taxes for everybody who pays taxes."

There is a reason the tax-cut bill left Bush a bit tongue tied: behind the scenes, his campaign operatives have been working hard against it, congressional sources tell TIME. The last thing they want before an election in which Bush is promising relief to taxpayers is for someone else to get there first. Especially since it poses the prospect of the photo op from hell--the image of Al Gore smiling over the shoulder of Bill Clinton as he signs a tax cut for which everyone gets credit except the Republican nominee.

That is in essence the argument that influential Washington lobbyist Haley Barbour, a key adviser to the Bush campaign, has made in a series of memos to House and Senate leaders. He has invoked the damage that Congress did to Bob Dole in 1996 by giving Clinton welfare reform to sign. Former Republican chairman Barbour insists that he made it clear on the cover sheets that he was not speaking on behalf of the campaign, but as a longtime congressional strategist put it, "When people get a memo from Haley, they assume it's what Austin wants." Other sources say that Bush chief strategist Karl Rove and others from the campaign have also been on the phone to House and Senate leaders jawboning against a congressional strategy of more modest tax cuts that looks similar to the proposal being offered by Bush's chief rival for the nomination, Senator John McCain.

From a candidate who styles himself an outsider, those are impressive inside moves. The problem is that "what Austin wants" carries a lot less weight in the Republicans' inner councils than it did a few months ago. G.O.P. sources tell TIME that last fall, after Clinton vetoed Congress's $792 billion tax cut, it was pressure from the Bush campaign that helped shut down Republican discussions of whether to chop that tax relief into smaller pieces, pass it in increments and force the President's hand. Now that the Bush campaign has stumbled, lawmakers are far less certain of the Texas Governor's ability to carry everyone over the finish line with him in November--and far less fearful of the consequences of undercutting him. (And some people on the Hill are not too unhappy about sticking it to Bush after he practiced some Clinton-style triangulation himself, accusing congressional Republicans last September of balancing the budget "on the backs of the poor.")

Meanwhile, it has not escaped notice on Capitol Hill that McCain's approach of using the surplus to pay down the debt, rather than spending it on huge tax cuts, is gaining traction with voters, including conservative Republicans. "Bush can't sell a tax cut, because it's wildly unpopular," says one who has been involved in G.O.P. strategy discussions. "Debt reduction would be much smarter."

So congressional Republicans are no longer viewing this election as a double date--particularly for the House, where control of the chamber is at stake. Recent polls show Republicans faring far better than they were in the wake of impeachment. "We don't care what Bush wants," says a House leadership strategist. "We have our own election to worry about."

The Senate too is revising its plans in the face of the new political reality. As recently as a few weeks ago, at a strategy session in the Library of Congress, Senate Republicans agreed that they should wait for a friendly President before pursuing tax reduction. But since then, small groups of Senators--led by those who are on the ballot this year--have gone to Senate majority leader Trent Lott pleading for some accomplishments, however small, to take to the voters. Given the size of the House tax vote last week, says Lott spokesman John Czwartacki, the Senate plans to follow suit "in pretty short order."

That is not to say that tax cuts this year are anything like a sure deal. The Senate's rules--or rather, its lack of them--will make it difficult for Lott to engineer a tax reduction without Democrats throwing in their own campaign issues, such as gun control and managed-care reform. And Clinton, despite his State of the Union call for easing the tax-law quirk known as the "marriage penalty," still says he will veto a bill anywhere near as large as the House's. But White House officials acknowledge privately that the politics of vetoing smaller tax cuts with an election looming would be trickier than killing the big tax cut last year.

That leaves Bush, who spent last week describing McCain as a Washington insider who says one thing and does another, in the position of calling for tax cuts while his campaign tries its best to make sure they don't happen anytime soon. But ever since the New Hampshire result upended the Republican race, not even the best inside moves by a self-designated outsider are working the way they used to.

--With reporting by James Carney with Bush and John F. Dickerson with McCain

With reporting by James Carney with Bush and John F. Dickerson with McCain