Congressional Republicans say tax relief will be a top priority this year. And as always, the most important work will be carried out by the staff. That has ardent tax-cutters in the party fretting over the resume of Lindy Paull, staff director of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee. Though her boss Sen. William Roth was the Senate’s first supply-sider, snipers say Paull’s Capitol Hill tenure puts her outside the free-market tent. She previously toiled for Bob Packwood, a longtime moderate, and was a close ideological ally of Bob Dole’s moderate chief of staff, Sheila Burke (the two collaborated in 1995 to help scotch some of the welfare-reform proposals supported by conservatives). Paull also successfully lobbied (with a few others) for a temporary Medicare premium increase during last year’s budget showdown — a “good government” proposal that congressional Republicans now point to as one of their most misguided efforts of the past two years. No one doubts Paull’s expertise on fiscal issues, and it is precisely her mastery of the tax code and her institutional memory that may allow her to adversely influence internal debates. Roth recently moved to provide some balance on the committee by appointing two conservatives, Frank Polk and Joan Woodward, to senior Finance Committee positions.
