Bush prepares to campaign once more for tax cuts

President Bush discusses his upcoming tax-cut trip at the White House on Monday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush is preparing for another trip to the West and Southeast this week, where he hopes to convince voters that some of the more moderate lawmakers they have sent to the House and Senate should get on board with his planned $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut.

The president plans to visit Illinois, North Dakota, South Dakota and Louisiana starting at midweek before heading next weekend to his Crawford, Texas, ranch.

The voters who dispatched Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, and Sen. John Breaux, D-Louisiana, to Congress are among those Bush would like to persuade to bend their lawmakers' ears.

DOCUMENT President Bush's tax proposal Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing.     RESOURCE Whitehouse.gov: President Bush's budget blueprint     INTERACTIVE How will Bush's proposal affect your tax bracket? Compare: 2001 budget vs. Bush's proposed 2002 budget     IN-DEPTH CNNfn: Tax Time     MESSAGE BOARD Taxing and spending

As minority leader, Daschle is leading the charge in the Senate against the Bush tax plan. Breaux, meanwhile, is considered by many Republicans to be one of the more agreeable Democrats in either chamber.

"I like to get out of Washington," a jovial Bush told reporters following a meeting with House and Senate lawmakers that covered issues of Medicare restructuring and the federal budget. "There is a methodology to these trips."

Bush said he was deliberately targeting states where "people saw things my way" during the election, but where some members of Congress were meeting his proposals to slash the federal budget and use a vast portion of the surplus for tax cuts "with obstinence."

"I think it's important for the president to get out amongst the people," he said.

Bush will start his week on the road Tuesday by visiting the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where international currencies, stock indexes and beef and pork futures are traded.

"The president continues to take his message to the American people, outlining his budget and tax cut plans, and the mercantile exchange is a good venue to talk about economic growth," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer predicted Monday afternoon that the trips -- the president too a similar trip to the Midwest and South following his address to Congress last week -- would yield desirable results.

"We are confident we are going to be able to work with Republicans and Democrats alike to pass a tax bill in the House and Senate," Fleischer said.

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay tore into Democrats over the weekend, saying the congressional minority does not want any tax cuts and is not interested in working with President Bush on the issue.

Democrats returned the fire, accusing Bush of paying lip service to the idea of bipartisanship while ramming his $1.6 trillion, 10-year plan through Congress.

With the battle over the president's tax-relief proposal in high gear, both sides stepped up the rhetoric Sunday over how much to cut and how much to allocate across the government's myriad departments, agencies and programs in fiscal year 2002.

The House Ways and Means Committee approved a core part of Bush's tax-cut plan Thursday, and the full House is expected to take up the measure this week.

Sen. Robert Byrd: If Republicans try to ram the tax cut through the Senate, "they're going to crate a lot of ill will."

DeLay, a Texas Republican, criticized Democrats, noting the committee vote on reducing income tax rates fell along party lines, with Democrats opposing the measure.

The Democrats in the House and Senate are standing behind their own $900 billion tax-cut plan.

"They're not interested in cutting taxes; everybody knows that," DeLay said on Fox News Sunday. "When they were in charge, they never offered tax relief programs. They always raised taxes."

But Democrats had their own take on the tax-cut debate, insisting that Bush's proposal would favor the rich and undermine spending in areas such as health care and education.

They said Bush talked a good game about bipartisanship but failed to deliver.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, warned Republicans against using a procedural move that would limit debate on the tax-relief measure when it reaches the Senate.

"With a 50-50 makeup in the Senate, he's going to have to have some bipartisanship. If they try to ram that $1.6 trillion tax cut through this Senate by way of ... 'super gag rule reconciliation,' they're going to create a lot of ill will, and I'm not so sure they'll get their tax cut," Byrd said on Fox.

Fleischer reacted Monday, saying, "I fail to see the lack of bipartisanship," when pressed by reporters.

Other Democrats said the Bush plan was risky because it relies on projections of hefty surpluses in the years ahead -- surpluses that may not happen.

"It's impossible for us to forecast what's going to happen ten years from now and make a decision today to say what we're going to do," Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, said on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.

Rangel, the ranking Democrat on the tax writing House Ways and Means Committee, dismissed Bush as a "candyman," saying he was promising far more than he could deliver.

Vice President Dick Cheney defended the administration's budget outlook.

"Certainly, by any historical standard, it's a very conservative forecast," Cheney said on CNN.

As for the criticism that the Bush plan would cut taxes primarily for the rich, Cheney said the reduction in rates would cover everyone, dropping the top rate from 39 percent to 33 percent and the bottom rate from 15 percent to 10 percent.

"Now, if you are going to cut taxes across the board for everybody who pays taxes, then folks who make more and pay more tax now are going to get more of a reduction. But there is nothing unfair, inequitable about that," Cheney said.

The vice president predicted that some Democrats would support the Bush plan as it advances through Congress.

"I couldn't put a number on it, but I think in the final analysis they are going to have great difficulty voting against a tax cut for the American taxpayer when we are faced with the prospect of trillions of dollars in surpluses in the years ahead," he said.

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