sending their tax bill to the White House, President Clinton will veto it, and they'll replay the arguments they've been sounding all summer.

All on script, until the last act, which will involve a compromise or a standoff, no tax cut but an issue the Republicans think they can stretch into the 2000 campaign.

Clinton says he'd be willing to talk but not about anything close to the $792 billion, ten-year tax cut Congress narrowly approved before its summer recess.

He calls it irresponsible.

GOP leaders held the tax bill at the Capitol rather than send it to the White House, to be vetoed while they were out of town until Labour Day and the president held the stage alone.

They also wanted the time to try to build voter support for their tax bill, arguing that the money ought to be given back to taxpayers, because otherwise Clinton and the Democrats will spend it on new government programmes.

Clinton says the Republican bill would deprive old programmes, and vital ones, including Medicare, of vital funds.

Republicans say the polls tend their way on tax cuts, while Democrats say there is no groundswell for the tax bill. Either way, it won't change Clinton's position against a measure he threatened to veto long before it passed.

Nor will the cable TV and radio ads being aired by the Republican National Committee and GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes on stations that broadcast to the upstate New York resort area where Clinton is spending this last week of his vacation.

"Sign the tax bill, Mr. President,'' Forbes says in his radio spot. "I would.'' He won't.

During the recess, House and Senate Republicans say they've held around 600 events nationwide to explain and promote their tax cuts. Their weekly Saturday radio talks have pressed the GOP message, as Arizona Gov. Jane Hull did last weekend. She said Clinton "either has a deep-seated desire to increase government spending or he just does not want to give the money back to the people who earned it.'' Clinton doesn't miss a chance to argue that the Republican tax bill would undercut popular programmes -- education, farm programmes, even needs as basic as the air traffic control system.

The Office of Management and Budget has projected that over the next five years, the GOP tax cut would force close to $100 billion in automatic spending cuts under a 1990 budget law.

Republicans said the report is partisan and misleading.

Once the bill has been sent to the White House and Clinton has vetoed it, the question will be whether they can settle on anything to bridge their differences. So far it does not sound promising: Democrats have set a tax-cut ceiling of about $300 billion, and Clinton wants targetted reductions. The Republican formula also includes capital gains tax cuts, gradual elimination of the inheritance tax and easing of the so-called marriage penalty on two-income couples.

Clinton says he'll bargain on tax cuts, but not until Congress deals with the spending he considers vital, including Medicare.

"Then I will be very flexible about how we do it,'' Clinton said.

But first, The Veto. -- AP