Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 7, 1993 TAG: 9308070182
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Vice President Al Gore cast the tie-breaker in the Senate. But the decisive vote was cast by Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., the last senator to make up his mind. He declared he "could not and would not cast a vote that would bring down" the administration.
The bill, with claimed deficit savings of $496 billion over five years, had cleared the House on a 218-216 vote Thursday night.
"Certainly not a mandate, two votes in the House and one in the Senate," Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole observed acidly just before the roll call that sent the plan to the White House without a single GOP vote for it in either chamber.
Democrats said the passage marked the end of gridlock and pledged additional spending cuts later in the year.
The plan's bitter pill of tax increases and spending restraints includes a gasoline tax increase of 4.3 cents per gallon. It also reverses 12 years of Republican policies by putting most of the new tax burden on the wealthy.
"Sometimes the right thing is not the easy thing," Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, said in a final plea for the bill. He urged colleagues to vote yes, "not for your re-election [but] . . . based on what is best for our country."
Countered Dole, "This is a bad plan. It raises taxes, and it does little to effectively reduce government spending or control the deficit."
The packed Senate galleries erupted in cheers when Gore announced his vote and declared, "The president's economic program is passed."
All 50 Senate votes in favor came from Democrats. All 46 Republicans and six Democrats voted no.
But the suspense had been drained from the roll call roughly two hours earlier, when Kerrey, a Clinton rival in the 1992 presidential campaign, declared his support.
Enactment of the bill capped months of drafting, bargaining and polishing by the president and the Democratic leaders in Congress as they squeezed support from Democrats concerned about raising taxes. As late as Thursday night the president was offering concessions to hesitant House Democrats, pledging his support for votes later this year on additional cuts in federal spending.
What Clinton said to Kerrey was not known. The two men met privately in the White House early in the day. Then followed hours of suspense, capped by the Nebraskan's address to a hushed chamber.
"President Clinton, if you are watching now, as I suspect you are, I could not and would not cast a vote that would bring down your presidency," Kerrey said.
"You do not deserve and America cannot afford to have you spend the next 60 days quibbling over whether we should have this cut or this tax increase," he said.
When Kerrey finished, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., and several other Democrats applauded and some shook his hand. Moynihan strode over to Kerrey and slapped him on the back.
Without support from Kerrey, the likely outcome was a two-vote defeat for the measure, with its hefty tax increase on the rich and 4.3 cents-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax.
Democrats called the bill an opportunity to regain control of the economy while Republicans accused the Democrats of being too eager to raise taxes and too slow to cut spending.
by CNB