Clinton warns Bush against tax cuts

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

NEW YORK, JAN. 13. The outgoing U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, has cautioned Congress against excessive tax cuts and spending increases that could jeopardise the prosperity seen over the last several years. In his last economic report to Congress, Mr. Clinton described his eight years of presidency as one of prosperity and progress.

``I would hope that the combined total of the tax cut and spending plan would not be so large as to call our fiscal discipline into question,'' Mr. Clinton remarked to reporters. The President said while the economy was slowing down, most experts believed that growth would continue to be at a moderate level this year and that there would not be a recession.

But the state of the economy is precisely the bone of contention between the outgoing administration and the incoming Bush administration with the latter not sharing the optimism of Mr. Clinton's assessment. In the view of the Republican President- elect, the slowdown provided strong evidence of the need for a $1.3 trillion tax cut over the next 10 years. Mr. George W Bush has said that pushing his tax cut package will be one of his top priorities on entering office.

The President-elect has said that he will take into account options only on when the reductions should take place. ``What I won't consider is trying to diminish the size of the tax relief package,'' Mr. Bush said. In an interview to USA Today, Mr. Bush said it was encouraging that some on Capitol Hill were for speeding up the effects of a cut on marginal rates. Asked if he was not ruling out retroactive tax cuts, Mr. Bush said, ``No, not at all. I'm open minded. But my focus is on getting a tax relief package through, the size of which is appropriate''. Critics of Mr. Bush have alleged that the incoming team has been harping on a so-called economic recession for political reasons - to push ahead with the massive tax cut package over the next decade.

The tax cut proposals or for that matter the specifics of an education policy will have his attention when Mr. Bush formally becomes the 43rd President of the United States a week from now. But he faces a bigger challenge next week when some of his crucial appointees are vetted in the Senate. In particular, the Bush team is gearing for a nasty battle over the nomination of Mr. John Ashcroft with all indications that Mr. Bush may personally intervene on behalf of his choice if the situation warrants.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is to receive a transcript of a speech given by Mr. Ashcroft at the Bob Jones University in 1999 when he got an honorary degree. The Bush transition will not say what the speech contains that has attracted the attention of some Senators on the Judiciary Committee who have threatened not to move on a vote in the panel until the transcript is provided. A Christian fundamentalist school in South Carolina, Bob Jones University until recently had banned inter-racial dating on its campus, a sore point with liberal Democrats and civil rights groups in the country. Asked in the USA Today interview as to why he picked a ``lightning rod'' like Mr. Ashcroft at a time when he was talking about healing the nation's wounds, Mr. Bush responded that he knew special interest groups would not like some of his picks. ``A President campaigns, lays out a philosophy and picks a cabinet that reflects his views.''

Civil rights groups and environmentalists have also targeted Ms. Gale Norton who has been chosen to lead the Interior Department. While environmentalists are worried about Ms. Norton undermining laws that protect millions of acres of federal land, civil rights activists are focussing on a speech she gave in 1996 in which she appeared to support confederacy by remarking ``We lost too much'' with the defeat of the south. But Mr. Bush defended Ms. Norton by saying, ``She, in no way, shape or form was talking about any value to slavery,''

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Section  : International
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