Democratic Rep. Bill Orton and Republican challenger Chris Cannon disagree on whether tax cuts would help balance the federal budget and reduce the deficit.
Given a choice between balancing the federal budget and cutting taxes, Orton favored the former during a recent debate. He said the budget should be balanced with spending cuts, not tax cuts that can't be paid for without further slashing some necessary government programs. He also argues that Republicans would have to borrow money to pay for the reduced taxes."Let's face it. The first thing you do when you're in a deep hole is stop digging," he said.
Cannon prefers reduced taxes and spending to balance the budget. He favors Bob Dole's plan for a 15 percent across-the-board tax cut. Cannon also wants to eliminate the departments of education, commerce, energy and housing and urbandevelopment.
"The budget should be balanced by spending cuts, not tax increases," Cannon said referring to Orton's "fancy" budget plan he says hides a $21.4 billion tax increase that pushes people into higher tax brackets.
The budget issue is one the candidates continually spar about as they make the rounds to various forums for debates in the 3rd Congressional District.
Cannon also criticized Orton's proposed budget, which was defeated in the past session of Congress, because he says it puts Social Security back on the chopping block and increases taxes.
"Despite these traumatic provisions, the Orton budget doesn't eliminate a single government department, increases welfare spending and slashes defense. "Bill Orton's budget priorities are simply not Utah's budget priorities," Cannon said.
Orton, who served on the House Budget Committee, said some departments have essential programs that benefit thousands of Utahns. The Department of Education, for example, administers student loans. The three-term congressman dismissed the other two charges as false. He said his budget would spend more on defense and less on welfare than proposed by President Clinton. Orton's numbers are similar to those Republicans favor. Also, it makes no changes to Social Security, he said.
Orton said he's not opposed to lowering taxes, but he wants to know how they'll be paid for. Broad-based, untargeted tax cuts will drive up the deficit, he said. Orton wants Cannon to specifically identify how he'll cover $300 million he says the Dole economic plan takes away in tax revenue.
Wiping out the federal departments will account for that, Cannon said, although Orton argues those things are already eliminated in the Republican budget. Another way, Cannon said, is to cut corporate welfare, the government subsidies large companies receive to do business. Dropping the $50 billion a year the government pays corporation for six years would cover the shortfall, he said.
But Orton said the $50 billion is a six-year total, not a per-year number. Orton favors cutting $29 million in corporate loopholes to reduce the amount federal dollars flowing to high-income companies.
Orton said his budget plan would reduce the deficit immediately, while the plan Cannon adheres to would cause it balloon the next two years.
"We can continue our deficit progress by enacting a balanced budget plan along the lines of my coalition budget or the moderate House Republican budget plan, which are very similar," he said. "Or we can repeat the mistakes of the 1980s, borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from future generations to pay for a huge, politically motivated tax cut."
Cannon says the proposed tax cut isn't politically motivated but a way to allow people to be able to keep more of their own money.