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American Morning

Tax Cut Legislation Reaches Moment of Truth

Aired May 03, 2001 - 11:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the moment of truth has arrived for President Bush's tax cut proposal. House and Senate leaders plan to bring up the budget package for final votes today.

To Capitol Hill now and CNN's Kate Snow standing by -- Kate.

KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning or good afternoon, Leon. That is still the plan. But let me tell you what's going on up here, a lot of little tidbits we're getting in.

Yesterday they announced that they had a budget deal as you would call it, the $1.97 trillion budget. And they set a vote for today. Well, it wasn't the easiest agreement to come to in the first place. And now it looks like there may be a few last-minute details that they're still trying to work out, Republicans in the House in particular trying to sort out one issue.

Among others, one of the things they're looking at is there is $5 billion in this budget the way the deal was worked out that calls for -- it's allowed for emergency spending there as a buffer. And the debate is who decides what constitutes an emergency? Who is going to make the call?

The word is that Republican conservatives on the House side would like to see representative Jim Nussle, the Budget chairman, be in charge of that money because simply he's a little more conservative and not likely to spend much of the money. They have to work that out.

They also have to work out some issues on the Senate side. Then they'll be able to bring this budget up for a vote. Meantime, Democrats say that they haven't even seen the budget agreement yet. They haven't seen the language. They haven't seen the exact amounts for spending. They're a little bit upset about that.

The House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt saying that this budget is a joke. He said that it is a PR exercise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: This is the day that we decide to give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest special interests in country and not have a reasonable tax cut for middle- income and poorer Americans. This is the day that we decide to not fund education programs, even though the president has said over and over again this was his number one priority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: Again, strong language from Dick Gephardt just a few minutes ago inside. And that said, though, the Republicans are likely to win this one, the bill expected to pass in both the House and the Senate with the support of at least a few moderate Democrats. Leon, back to you.

HARRIS: All right, thanks much, Kate Snow on Capitol Hill.

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