Nussle and Harkin differ over president’s budget

Iowa Congressman Jim Nussle, now chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, says President Bush’s tax cut should be enacted. He says it is very responsible and very doable.Bush addressed Congress last night, outlining his tax and budget priorities.Bush wants a one-point-six trillion-dollar tax cut.Democrats argue the plan will benefit the rich, and shift more of the tax burden on middle-income Americans. Nussle, a republican from Manchester, says democrats are pitting neighbor against neighbor. He says there will be people who continue to dwell on the “class warfare,” but he says that’s grown stale.Iowa’s democrat Senator Tom Harkin says Bush’s budget plan falls short because it doesn’t deal with the challenges the nation faces. He says the budget will make it hard to meet obligations to education and saving Social Security and Medicare.”Harkin says Bush’s tax and budget plans will create the same economic woes wrought by the Reagan tax cut of 1981.Nussle and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, now chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, were among a group of lawmakers who went to the White House yesterday afternoon for a pre-speech meeting with Bush. In written remarks, Grassley compared the President’s budget to “quality Iowa beef…lean where it should be and fat just where it counts.”