Opinion Editorial | |
| Wednesday, July 14, 1999 | |
Tax Cuts Require Ground Work |
Once again, Republicans have shown their ineptness in dealing with the tax issue. Over the weekend, House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer (R-Texas) and Senate Finance Committee chairman Bill Roth (R-Del.) rolled out major tax bills. They expect to clear them through their respective committees within days and to have them voted upon before the end of the month. This is not the way to do tax policy--either substantively or politically.
The differences between the two bills are not important--both would cut taxes over the next ten years by about $800 billion, using up most of the non-Social Security surplus that recent budget revisions have provided. Archer's bill is more growth-oriented, while Roth's is designed more for getting Bill Clinton's signature by tilting toward those with low incomes. But in the end, there is no chance Clinton will sign either bill.
What is the point of bringing bills up for a rushed vote when there is no chance of enactment? The answer is that Republicans need to have something to talk to their constituents about during the upcoming August recess. Since they have almost no accomplishments to tout, they desperately need something to throw the party faithful. Thus the important thing is not whether anyone's taxes will actually be cut this year, but to show the faithful that their leaders are trying.
However, if their leaders were truly interested in getting a meaningful tax cut enacted, this is not how they would go about it. Both the Finance Committee and Ways & Means Committee ought to have been holding hearings all year on major tax initiatives. Instead, they have done virtually nothing to build a record of why we need a big tax cut and why certain provisions, such as a cut in the capital gains tax, ought to be included. As a consequence, Republicans really have very little ammunition to use against the administration's counterattacks.
Since Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, I have been puzzled by their unwillingness and inability to use hearings to advance their agenda. Not only do they appear to view them as an unnecessary chore, but actually as something to be avoided unless compelled to do them. I believe much of their legislative failure stems from this aversion.
Hearings serve several important purposes. They provide members of Congress with expert opinions, facts and analyses on complex issues, they give opportunities to those who care about certain issues a chance to have their views heard, and they can be excellent marketing tools for advancing legislation and highlighting a party's intellectual base. It is far better for a member to hear the best experts from his side argue a controversial issue with the best experts from the other side before trying to debate the issue himself. That way they get not only facts and arguments that have already been thought through, but also tips on how to explain an issue so it can be understood by non-experts.
It would have been far better for Rep. Archer and Sen. Roth to have put forward their tax bills months ago and spent some serious time hearing from experts and interested parties about them. This would have alerted them to potential weaknesses in their legislation, given think tanks and other groups time to do their own analyses, and built political support for their plans. Instead, in the dead of night, with no apparent input either from members of their committees or outside sources, Archer and Roth delivered their plans as fait accomplis. It virtually guarantees their failure and another Clinton victory, again.
Source: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis, July 14, 1999.
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