THE NEVER-ENDING TAX BILL : Check the expiration date.

George W. Bush's big tax cut is now a reality. So you know what will happen when the president wants to oppose new spending--say, more money to help the elderly buy prescription drugs. The White House line will be: "Sorry, we don't have the money."

The response should be: "What do you mean we, Mr. President?"

The money to solve social problems and keep the budget in balance was certainly there when Bush took office. Now, a large chunk of the budget surplus is committed to the most deceptive tax cut ever passed by any Congress.

To pretend the tax cut is smaller than it is, our brilliant legislators made it expire at the end of 2010. Kaput. It's gone. Theoretically, all the rates go back up after that.

Creating this entirely artificial expiration date meant that Congress could pretend it passed a $1.35-trillion tax cut when, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, it's really a $1.9-trillion tax cut. If you count interest on the national debt that won't be paid off as a result of this bill, the true cost will be $2.3 trillion over the next eleven years.

But aren't average Americans getting the bulk of this money? They're not. True, the bill does create a new 10 percent bracket on the first $12,000 of income for married couples. But the 15 percent tax rate, paid by couples on earnings up to $45,000, is not cut at all.

"Who are the families singled out for virtually no tax cut in this bill?" asked Senator Jean Carnahan (D-Mo.) who sought unsuccessfully to cut the 15 percent rate. "These are Americans who are working the late-night shift at the factory. These are cops on the beat. These are American moms and dads working two jobs to save to send their kids to college."

Carnahan nonetheless voted for the tax measure, whose biggest rate cuts go to taxpayers earning more than $300,000.

"I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief," said Arizona Senator John McCain, one of two Republicans with the courage to vote no.

And then there is the road not taken. "The emergence of federal surpluses has presented America with an unprecedented opportunity to make some desperately needed investments in our economy," said Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, the other Republican who voted against the bill. "While we can debate which investments are of the highest priority, we should not squander this historic opportunity to address some of our nation's chronic problems."

We don't have to. McCain-Chafee Republicans should join with Democrats to resolutely reject the political logic this tax bill is designed to impose.

If Congress passes a prescription-drug benefit and its opponents say "we can't afford it," Congress can declare a moratorium on the tax cut until it's clear the drug benefit is paid for. If the president proposes Medicare or Social Security cuts because we face deficits, Congress can say there would be no deficits without these tax cuts and reject the president's plans.

And if the president eventually proposes a big defense buildup, Congress can say no to all exotic new weapons systems until he explains how they'll be paid for without breaking the budget. Bush delayed his defense plan until after his tax cut passed, and for this year, at least, the White House is proposing a relatively modest supplemental appropriation for the Pentagon.

McCain said he feared an excessive tax cut "would restrict our ability to fund necessary increases in defense spending." If Bush didn't want an open debate about priorities before his tax cut became law, that's no reason not to have it now.

This tax bill is so incoherent that it will have to be revisited. That may be its one and only virtue. Just this time, I'll agree with the Wall Street Journal's editorial page (May 30), which rarely meets a tax cut for the wealthy it doesn't like: "Some of the tax bill phases in so slowly as to be imperceptible, some of it phases out so dramatically as to be neck-snapping...and all of it vanishes in nine years unless Congress waves its wand over the whole thing."

That's why the fight over this terrible bill did not end with its passage. The fight is just beginning.

[C] 2001, Washington Post Writers Group