Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the leading Republican candidate for president, who is seeking to shore up support among conservatives, said that he would not raise taxes under any circumstances.

"In fact, I could see an argument, if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates and certainly decreasing corporate tax rates, which are the second highest in the world," McCain said on ABC's "This Week."

Even though McCain has nearly locked up the GOP nomination, he still faces wariness among many fiscal conservatives because he voted twice against President Bush's tax-cut proposals. Democrats have been using the tax issue, too, to take aim at McCain's reputation for straight talk, noting that he originally opposed the tax cuts but later supported them and now wants to make them permanent.

"I admired Senator McCain when he stood up and said that it offended his conscience to support the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in a time of war," Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said last week. "But somewhere along the road to the Republican nomination, the Straight Talk Express lost its wheels, because now he's all for those same tax cuts."

McCain replied that he has wanted the tax cuts to be made permanent "for a long time" but that he has also long argued that Congress needs to restrain spending.

"Spending restraint is why our base is not energized. Spending restraint is why we are having to borrow money from China, and we've got to have spending restraints," McCain said. "But to impose on the American people what essentially would be a tax increase of thousands of dollars per family in America is not something I think -- well, I'm sure would be bad for the economy of this country."

McCain was also asked about his February 2005 comment that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) "would make a good president."

"She would be a good president in the respect that I think she has integrity. I think she has all of the qualities that are necessary, but she has a very different philosophical view, the liberal Democratic view, than I have, which is conservative Republican," McCain said. "So when you say 'good,' she's a good person. But we have strong differences in our views of government."

Increased Threat? Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said the risk of a terrorist attack against the United States increased upon the lapsing Saturday of a law expanding the surveillance powers of the government. Enemies of the United States are using "new information, new personalities, new methods of communicating" as they plan attacks, McConnell said, and the government needs more powers to monitor activities.

Congress gave the government those powers in August, but only temporarily. Their renewal is hung up in a dispute over whether to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that provide information.

The Bush administration argues that the guiding law, which requires a warrant from a special court to monitor communications that pass through a U.S. system, is out of date.

"Foreigners communicating in a foreign country," McConnell said on "Fox News Sunday," "more than likely the communications would pass through the United States. . . . Now, a warrant means probable cause, which is a very time-consuming process to go through. So we were in that situation last summer. We passed the new act to make it -- improve our situation. That act has now expired."

By Zachary A. Goldfarb