By Jim Abrams
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, Jan. 21, 2001; 5:20 p.m. EST

WASHINGTON –– The Bush administration gets off to a heady start this week with promotion of the president's $1.6 trillion tax plan in the Senate. President Bush picked up a Democratic sponsor, but also got Democratic warnings that he faces trouble if he ignores their priorities.

Bush must also deal with the insistence of his former rival for the GOP presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain, that campaign finance be one of the first items on the congressional agenda.

The Arizona senator and his Democratic ally, Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, are to introduce their bill limiting campaign contributions on Monday, and Bush is to confer with McCain on Wednesday.

Also on Monday, Bush is expected to meet with congressional Republican leaders. Separately, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm, R-Texas, joined by Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., are announcing plans to introduce Bush's massive 10-year tax relief proposal. White House aides said the details of that across-the-board tax cut proposal should emerge when Bush submits his budget next month.

Miller's press secretary, Joan Kirchner, said Miller had campaigned on being "a tax-cutting senator like he was a tax-cutting governor. This was a great opportunity to do both."

Other Democrats, meanwhile, repeated their contention that the plan is overly ambitious and that Congress' first duty is to prepare a budget that ensures fiscal discipline and reduction of the national debt.

"The one that President Bush is proposing is much too large and may spend money that we really don't have," Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said on ABC's "This Week."

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, on CNN's "Late Edition," said Bush would work with McCain for campaign finance legislation that is "fair across the board," and contains "paycheck protection" that gives union members the right to withhold dues going to political donations.

But Bush's priorities are education, tax cuts and military readiness, he said.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said on ABC that paycheck protection, strongly opposed by organized labor, was "cumbersome and incredibly impractical" and would face a fight.

McCain, on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he was starting a grass-roots campaign in states of legislators who oppose his legislation, and he insisted that his bill must get a vote by the end of March. "I believe we can work together on this, but we know that delay is death."

The Senate on Saturday quickly confirmed seven members of Bush's Cabinet, but hopes of pushing through legislative initiatives quickly could be stymied by a floor battle over the nomination of former Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., to be attorney general. Daschle said Sunday he did not support a filibuster over the Ashcroft nomination, but Democrats will want floor time to explain why they think Ashcroft is too conservative for the job.

Ashcroft is expected to be confirmed eventually, with all 50 Republicans and some Democrats in support.

Bush also plans to move quickly to lay out his education package, including more school testing, holding schools more accountable for performance, boosting literacy and, most controversial, expanding school voucher programs.

Card said vouchers "won't be the top priority" of the administration but will be a tool used to help children trapped in failing schools.

Lieberman said he doubted "we can find a meeting of the minds on the question of so-called vouchers" under which money is diverted from public schools to send pupils to the school of their choice.

Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate on the Democratic ticket, also warned that as Bush deals with a Senate split 50-50, "if he goes over more toward one end of the spectrum, there's going to be confrontation. Of course the same is true of us."

Among other issues:

–Bush's first overseas trip could come in mid-February to a North American country, said Card, who would not say if that would be Canada or Mexico.

–Finding a Mideast peace is a top foreign policy goal. Bush has discussed the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with his national security team and it's "something he's paid careful attention to," senior White House adviser Karl Rove said on Fox.

–The federal government will not become involved in California's energy crisis, but the situation points out the need for a national energy policy and more domestic energy sources, Rove said.

–Card said he is responsible for reviewing the many rules and regulations – including the recent approval of the abortion pill RU-486 – issued at the end of the Clinton administration. On Saturday, Bush suspended some environmental protections and Medicare guidelines Clinton imposed in the final hours of his presidency.