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Bush stimulus plan gets early reviews
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With a White House economic proposal scheduled to be announced this week, lawmakers debated Sunday on the direction in which the economy should be stimulated. President Bush is expected to announce his economic stimulus package during a Tuesday visit to Chicago, Illinois. The proposal is being termed a "jobs and growth plan" that would cost about $600 billion, a Bush administration official said. "I think what the president's interested in doing -- what I'm interested in doing -- is growing the economy," U.S. Sen. Don Nickles, R-Oklahoma, told NBC's "Meet the Press." Administration and congressional sources familiar with the details of the White House plan said it likely would include new tax breaks for individuals and businesses such as tax cuts on stock dividends, write-offs for businesses that purchase certain equipment and acceleration of tax cuts currently scheduled to take effect in 2004. "People that just want to play class warfare say, 'If you have tax cuts, that's going to benefit the wealthy,' " Nickles said. "Well, the wealthy are paying most of the taxes. You ought to have tax cuts for taxpayers." But Democrats -- who plan to release a stimulus package Monday -- said middle- and low-income families are the ones who need their taxes lowered. "What we want is to give tax relief to the middle class," U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told NBC. "We want to do something to have people have more confidence in what's going on in corporate America. And we have to do something about the people that are out of work now, who have no unemployment benefits." Sources said the president's plan may reinstate an extension of unemployment compensation that expired in December. The plan also may include other benefits for jobless Americans, including job training programs, the sources said. The president also will propose giving federal dollars to cash-strapped states to fund Medicaid and other programs, the sources said. The plan also could include proposals targeted to middle- and low-income Americans, such as a child tax credit and a boost in the earned income tax credit, the sources said, but it is not clear if those provisions will make it. "I think the president is trying to pull a fast one," U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, said during an appearance on ABC's "This Week." "He's trying to use the Bush recession to put money in the pockets of the richest Americans over a long period of time while providing very little help for regular people." Edwards is one of several Democrats lining up to challenge Bush in the 2004 election. Package not a done dealDespite his party's control of Congress, the prospects for Bush's plan are uncertain. "You may see some fine-tuning of the president's program to make it more effective, to actually get more bang for the buck," said U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana. "But I think you'll see broad bipartisan support for targeting tax cuts and investment incentives and aid to the states and unemployed, to kind of provide us an insurance policy to get job creation moving." "I think probably it's a good idea to have some cuts in taxes on dividends," U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "But I think it's important to recognize that the people that have kept our economy going are middle-income Americans." Congressional sources said a Democratic counterproposal would be more expensive than the White House plan in the short term, though it would cost less in the long term -- reflecting the Democratic view that more must be done immediately to bolster the economy. The Democratic plan likely will include a refundable tax credit, similar to the 2001 tax rebate checks, sources said. However, instead of covering only those people who pay taxes, as the 2001 rebate did, the Democratic plan also would provide the credit to those who don't pay taxes, the sources said. At a news conference Friday, incoming House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California gave few details of the proposal but characterized it as "fair" and "fiscally sound." "It will create jobs ... and it will grow the economy," she said. Pelosi dismissed the reported outline of the Bush plan as a "Trojan horse to wheel in some tax breaks for the high-end that they're so fond of." "There's no question the economy's in big trouble," Reid said. "We have to look at what's good for the average American."
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