WATCHING WASHINGTON DAVID VS. THE ADMINISTRATION

With Patrick Crow David Boren has become the most visible U.S. senator to oppose the Clinton administration's proposed BTU tax. The mild mannered Oklahoma Democrat entered the fray reluctantly, trapped between his role on the tax writing finance committee and welling antitax sentiment in Oklahoma. Democrats need Boren's vote to hold their 11-9 majority on the committee and pass the president's economic package containing the BTU tax. Committee members John Breaux (D-La.) and Kent

June 7, 1993

3 min read

David Boren has become the most visible U.S. senator to oppose the Clinton administration's proposed BTU tax.

The mild mannered Oklahoma Democrat entered the fray reluctantly, trapped between his role on the tax writing finance committee and welling antitax sentiment in Oklahoma.

Democrats need Boren's vote to hold their 11-9 majority on the committee and pass the president's economic package containing the BTU tax. Committee members John Breaux (D-La.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) also oppose the BTU tax but more quietly than Boren.

BOREN'S BATTLE

Boren's attacks on the tax while it was in the House of Representatives added to the bill's political jeopardy. House Democrats began asking why they should vote for an unpopular tax bill the Senate finance committee was likely to kill anyway.

The Clinton administration's anger at Boren boiled over after Boren and three other senators introduced a competing deficit reduction bill May 20, one without a BTU tax. Although Boren clearly lacked the votes to pass his bill, the White House attacked it with a vengeance.

Congressional Democratic leaders quickly scorned Boren's bill, and Deputy Treasury Sec. Roger Altman said, "The Boren alternative shifts $50 billion from the elderly and the working poor to the oil companies and the wealthy. That won't pass. Most Democrats and some others won't touch it with a ten foot pole."

And even Clinton got a dig in. He said the details of Boren's bill only "show our plan is sound and balanced."

Apparently the administration's overreaction angered the genteel Boren, because his next step was to take an unusual walk across the Capitol Building to the House side.

Normally, members of one house maintain a facade of indifference about the status of legislation in the other. And they never try to influence bills in the other body.

But just before the House vote on the president's bill, Boren met with 25 conservative and moderate House Democrats.

He told them Clinton lacked the votes he needs in the Senate, and the House should delay the administration bill until Democrats can find an alternative to the BTU tax.

Nevertheless, the vote was taken and Clinton narrowly won, 219-213, after making some desperate, last minute concessions. The next day the president telephoned Boren, apparently to see if those concessions would also appease him.

CHANCE FOR COMPROMISE

Encouraged, Boren told CBS's "Face the Nation" May 30 the administration's new attitude will "improve the chances by about 100% that we're going to be able to work out an agreement."

He added more spending cuts and less taxes were more important to him than the BTU tax. Reporters interpreted that to mean Boren no longer would block the BTU tax in the finance committee.

Wrong. Boren was compelled to explain that although he wants a compromise, it must not include a BTU tax.

The impasse between an increasingly determined Bill Clinton and an increasingly stubborn David Boren may be resolved when the finance committee takes up the economic package this week.