Bush takes his tax-cut plan on the road

Bush addresses a crowd at the North Dakota State University campus in Fargo, North Dakota, after the vote

FARGO, North Dakota (CNN) -- President Bush took his tax-cut plan on the road Thursday, touting it to an enthusiastic crowd of more than 10,000 people that packed Bison Sports Arena.

"The air may be cold, but the reception is unbelievably warm," he told the cheering crowd in Fargo, where the temperature was 26 degrees, with a wind chill of 8 degrees.

Bush then said he had just been told that the House of Representatives in a 230-198 vote passed the tax rate cut he had proposed.

"One House down, and now the Senate to go," Bush said.

The speech was the first in a planned blitz of four states home to Democratic senators. Bush travels Friday to South Dakota and Louisiana, and takes his case to Floridians on Monday.

Under a bright blue banner that read "North Dakota Welcomes President George W. Bush," the president exhorted the crowd "to maybe e-mail some of the good folks in the U.S. Senate from your state."

In a speech frequently interrupted by applause, Bush reiterated many of the points he made last month in a speech outlining his tax cut plan to both houses of Congress: Over the next decade, the federal government will have enough money to pay for such priorities as education, a strong military, Medicare and Social Security and paying down the national debt, and still have money left over, Bush said.

"The fundamental question in Washington is what do we do with it?" he said. "Do we increase the size of government or do we remember that the surplus is not the government's money, it's the people's money?"

The role of the government is not to create wealth, he said, but to create an environment where a worker, an entrepreneur and a small business person "can realize his or her dreams."

Bush reiterated that, in addition to his tax rate cuts, he would cap the maximum amount paid at 33 percent and would scrap the "marriage penalty" and the estate tax, which he called "particularly unfair to America's farmers and ranchers."

Bush's critics have argued against the latter proposal, saying it would benefit primarily the wealthy. While acknowledging that the estate tax sometimes makes it hard to keep small businesses and farms within families, they have argued it would be better simply to amend the tax rather than to dump it. Earlier Thursday, the White House called the House vote on the core of Bush's tax plans an "important milestone."

The Bush administration also released tables showing that, under the president's proposal, the largest percentage reduction in income taxes goes to lower-income Americans.

People making between $30,000 and $40,000 would get a 38.3 percent cut in taxes, and those making more than $200,000 would get, on average, an 8.7 percent income tax-rate cut, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

The tables also show that those who make more than $200,000 would pay 42.9 percent of income taxes, and receive 25.4 percent of the benefits of the tax-rate cut.

Those making between $30,000 and $40,000 would pay 2.5 percent of the taxes, and would receive 6.5 percent of the president's tax cut, according to the tables.

The administration also said that the president hopes that "Democrats will support" tax cuts that "put more money in the hands of low- and middle-income Americans."

The plan the House passed Thursday would reduce the first $12,000 of taxable income for couples and $6,000 for singles from the current 15 percent to 12 percent, making that rate cut retroactive to January 1, 2001.

By 2006, the current five income tax rates (15 percent, 28 percent, 31 percent, 36 percent and 39.6 percent) would be changed to four lower rates (10 percent, 15 percent, 25 percent and 33 percent).

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