October 1, 1995. Bob Dole, Senate majority leader and presidential candidate, is working to shepherd an omnibus spending bill incorporating the GOP's seven-year deficit reduction plan to passage, around the promised veto of Bill Clinton. A marquee feature is $245 billion tax cuts, scaled down from the Contract with America's call for $354 billion but representing a consensus GOP figure since legislation took shape in the House and Senate in the spring of the year. After months of Democratic attacks, however,a Washington Post poll finds
that 69 percent of respondents deemed "leaving Medicare services basically as they are now" to be more important that cutting taxes. Dole wavers:
"Will {the tax cut} be $245 billion? I'm not certain at this point," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We have to get into the Finance Committee and see what we can achieve"(Washington Post, 10/3/95).
Heresy! Up rears an enforcer
all too familiar to those following the current budget battles in Washington:
