The inside-the-Beltway media kept telling us that President Bush's tax bill was doomed to failure. But the Texan's determination to accelerate economic growth by lowering taxes across the board won over Congress. It came down to the wire, but victory was pulled from the jaws of defeat.

And it's quite a victory -- the third-largest tax-cut bill in American history, with economic-growth incentives galore. It slashes investor dividend taxes, accelerates personal income-tax cuts, increases capital-investment expensing for large and small businesses and even reduces the tax on capital gains.

On the eve of the victorious vote, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Lieberman tried to argue that insufficient front-end tax-cut loading would leave the economy limp. But leading financial reporters pointed out that $260 billion in tax cuts will flow into the pockets of individuals and businesses for the next 18 months. GDP in this period, it was estimated, will rise a full 1 percent -- more than would have been the case otherwise.

This tax cut is a stellar achievement.

Using a very laid-back, Reaganesque-style of salesmanship, George W. Bush stayed on-message through a contentious period. At any one snapshot moment, it looked like congressional support was crumbling and key components of the tax package were being dismantled. But Bush understood that Main Street taxpayers will spend their money more wisely than government will. So he went over the heads of lawmakers and told the country, "I want to put more money in your pockets."

The economy is growing, he said, but it is buffeted by war, terrorism threats, energy shocks and corporate malfeasance. Tax cuts, he argued, will expand the economy more rapidly and in turn bring down unemployment. He also stressed the unfairness of taxing the same dollar of corporate profits twice, once as business income and again as investor dividends. Finally, he said, only tax-cut-driven economic growth will solve the deficit problem.

Bush paid little attention to public-opinion surveys that showed relatively lackluster voter support for his tax measures. Instead, he decided to lead rather than follow. He believed that voters will ultimately support him, and his economic-growth efforts, come election time next year.

So, Bush stuck with every supply-side-pariah in the bill -- including tax cuts on cap-gains, top personal rates and investor dividends. This completely dissed Democrats, who screamed like stuck pigs over "tax cuts for the rich."

But liberal Democrats in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail never got traction on their class-warfare arguments. While voters may not have been overly enthusiastic about the Bush plan, the president's numerous trips to the hinterland showed that the American electorate is in fact very enthusiastic about the president himself, and his unwavering leadership in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Once again, the pundits were wrong. Bush's wartime popularity did in fact spill over into the tax-cut agenda. A month after the president spoke to the troops on that aircraft carrier off the San Diego coast, he won the war on tax cuts. Continued...