US Treasury Secretary nominee John Snow faces his first test as a salesman for economic policies when the one-time proponent of balanced budgets tells senators today that he backs the president's US$670 billion tax-cut plan.
While lawmakers predict Snow will win confirmation as the 73rd Treasury chief, they plan to use today's Senate Finance Committee hearing to probe him on President George W. Bush's proposal to eliminate taxes on dividends, accelerate income-tax reductions and aid the unemployed.
"Snow will certainly face the usual Senate questions on tax cuts and his background, but he'll be strongly confirmed in a bipartisan fashion," said Mark Weinberger, who steered a US$1.35 trillion tax reduction through Congress in 2001 as assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy and is now deputy vice chairman of Ernst & Young LLP.
"He's a solid pick -- he's going to get confirmed," said Senator John Breaux, a Louisiana Democrat.
The Republican president ousted Paul O'Neill in December and tapped Snow, the CEO of the No. 3 railroad, to replace him after the US lost jobs for a second year and had a third straight annual drop in stock values. Bush wants Snow to help push through Congress a 10-year economic plan that some Democrats say would do little more than help the rich.
Democrats says Bush's plan to end taxes on stock dividends and accelerate income-tax cuts will boost the deficit and do little for the economy. Several economists estimate the budget deficit may reach US$300 billion or more this year.
To win confirmation, the 63-year old Snow may have to reconcile his previous support for a balanced federal budget with the administration's tax-cut plan.
Last February, Snow warned a stimulus package at that time might trigger "problems down the road," and in 1995 he led a US$2 million advertising campaign for a balanced budget as chairman of the Business Roundtable.
Currency traders also will seek policy clues in Snow's remarks on the dollar.
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