Congress: No Time for the Tax Bill

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"America wants tax reform," said President Reagan in Concord, N.H., last week, "and America is going to get tax reform." On the same day in Washington, congressional leaders predicted that despite the presidential pressure, the tax plan will go nowhere in 1985. "I don't think it has any chance of getting through Congress this year," said House Speaker Tip O'Neill after a meeting with other top lawmakers to set the fall legislative agenda. Time is a key factor: even optimists concede that the House will not vote on a tax bill before late October. That would leave the Senate only a few weeks to consider the complex legislation before its proposed adjournment around Thanksgiving. O'Neill said that Congress would not "rush helter-skelter" to change the 46-year-old tax code.

More pressing matters, such as the farm bill, the unfinished budget and trade problems, could push the tax plan even further to the side. When asked if the issues of trade and tax reform were like two trains passing in the night, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole replied, "Yes, and one isn't moving." If tax reform collapses this year, it may not be revived until after 1986. Congress is unlikely to take action on taxes in an election year.