Nevertheless, there are people in both parties who believe Greenspan has been tilting in Bush's direction by telling Congress that the surplus is big enough for national debt reduction and a major tax cut.

In March 2 testimony before the House Budget Committee, Greenspan said "if long-term fiscal stability is the criterion, it is far better, in my judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions than by spending increases."

However, he also said that "in recognition of the uncertainties in the economic and budget outlook, it is important that any long-term tax plan, or spending initiative for that matter, be phased in. Conceivably, it could include provisions that, in some way, would limit surplus-reducing actions if specified targets for the budget surplus or federal debt levels were not satisfied. Only if the probability were very low that prospective tax cuts or new outlay initiatives would send the on-budget accounts into deficit, would unconditional initiatives appear prudent."

Wall Street traders have been parsing Greenspan's words for years, but it's a relatively new phenomenon for the vote counters under the Capitol dome.

There's no doubting the feelings of Jewish Republicans more partisan than Greenspan. Congratulating Bush on his "emphasis on real tax relief for all Americans," Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said: "His plan gives the greatest percentage of tax reduction to those who need it most--the workers on the lower end of the economic sale. Cutting tax rates, doubling the child tax credit, reducing the marriage penalty and abolishing the death tax will lighten the tax burden on American families and encourage economic growth."

Brooks and other members of the Republican Jewish Coalition were briefed at the White House on March 1 by Karl Rove, White House senior advisor; Andy Card, White House chief of staff; Ken Mehlmann, White House political director and John Dilulio, the assistant to the president for faith-based initiatives.

In his budget address to a joint session of Congress on Feb. 27, Bush described his income tax cutting proposals this way:

"A tax rate of 15 percent is too high for those who earn low wages, so we lowered the rate to 10 percent. No one should pay more than a third of the money they earn in federal income taxes,so we lowered the top rate to 33 percent. This reform will be welcome relief for America's small businesses, which often pay taxes at the highest rate, and help for small business means jobs for Americans. We simplified the tax code by reducing the number of tax rates from the current five rates to four lower ones: 10, 15, 25, and 33 percent. In my plan, no one is targeted in or targeted out...everyone who pays income taxes will get relief."

Before Democrats had much chance to react, Republicans running the House Ways and Means Committee approved Bush's across-the-board cuts, with action on the floor of the House expected to come nearly as rapidly. Democrats reacted angrily, with Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota suggesting that by pushing the measure through without consultation, Congressional Republicans were putting the lie to another of Bush's much-vaunted goals: bipartisanship. -- Donald H. Harrison