Bush not expected to lobby Snowe on scaled-back tax cut

WASHINGTON – President Bush plans to travel to Ohio later this week to lobby Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, to support his scaled-back $550 billion tax cut, a plan also opposed by Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine.

Currently, the White House does not have a similar grass-roots lobbying trip to Maine scheduled, an administration source said Monday, and such a trip was deemed unlikely in the near future.

Bush had called for a $750 billion tax cut, but Snowe was instrumental in preventing its passage in the Senate. Saying the proposed amount was too large in time of war and rising deficits, Snowe said she would only accept up to a $350 billion version. Voinovich made a similar stand. Without the two Republican senators, the administration’s push for the pared-down $550 billion tax cut plan is unlikely to carry enough votes to pass when the Senate takes up the issue again after the spring break.

While in Bangor on Monday checking out the latest security measures at the international airport, Snowe said the $350 billion tax cut was significant and that it would help small businesses by providing quick stimulus to the economy.

“I agree with the president about his desire to pass a stimulus package to jump-start the economy,” she said. “I’m going to do all that I can to support small business. They are the engine that drives the economy.”

Snowe said she had a “substantive” conversation with the president about the proposed tax cut two weeks ago, but she didn’t have any information to support recent reports that he would be traveling to Maine to put pressure on her to back a larger tax-cut package.