I've been waiting for this. Maybe someone in Bush's camp has been waiting for Gore to keep spending until they hit him.
If the country truely is conservative leaning, then this could start to really hurt Gore--as it should. As we talk to friends who might be undecided, remember, Gore is spending roughtly 900 billion OVER the non Social Security Surplus !
From NYT:
Giving Praise to Clinton, Bush Says Gore Is Flawed http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/29/politics/29BUSH.html
September 29, 2000
By FRANK BRUNI
GREEN BAY, Wis., Sept. 28 After more than a year of trying to hang
President Clinton around Vice President Al Gore's neck, Gov. George
W. Bush took the opposite tack today, saying the main problem with
Mr. Gore was that he was not enough like his boss.
In a speech to workers at a manufacturing plant here, Mr. Bush
tacitly praised Mr. Clinton's past calls for an end to "big
government" and said Mr. Gore was not heeding them.
Instead, the vice president had "cast his lot with the old
Democratic Party" in proposing a new level of federal spending and
regulation that Mr. Bush said would endanger the country's current
prosperity.
"The vice president was seated right behind Bill Clinton at the
State of the Union when the president declared, `The era of big
government is over,' " Mr. Bush said, referring to Mr. Clinton's
address in January 1996. "Apparently, the message never took."
"My opponent seemed interested in reinventing government," Mr.
Bush said, alluding to one of Mr. Gore's signature phrases. "Now he
seems interested only in expanding it. For him, big government has
never really been dead. It's simply been biding its time, waiting
for its next chance."
Those comments made up some of the sharpened language that Mr.
Bush unveiled today to make the case that electing Mr. Gore might
mean a return to "the old ways of tax and spend."
Pressing the point, Mr. Bush called on Mr. Gore to promise
unequivocally that he would never raise the payroll taxes for
Social Security to keep the entitlement program financially
solvent. Mr. Bush has made that pledge.
The references to Mr. Clinton revealed a fresh tactic in Mr.
Bush's intrinsically difficult quest to persuade Americans that
they should unseat an incumbent administration in a period of
unparalleled prosperity.
Mr. Bush was essentially saying that electing Mr. Gore would not
be like re-electing Mr. Clinton, because Mr. Gore was less prot g
than dissident.
"He is proposing the largest increase in federal spending in 35
years, since the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson," Mr. Bush
said. "The vice president's spending plan proposes three times more
in new spending than Bill Clinton proposed in 1992. If the vice
president gets elected, the era of big government being over is
over. And so, too, I fear, could be our prosperity."
In casting Mr. Gore as financially profligate and trying to plant
fears that he might raise taxes, Mr. Bush sounded much like his
father did in 1988, when then-Vice President George Bush waged a
successful campaign for the presidency against Michael S. Dukakis,
then the governor of Massachusetts.
Mr. Bush did not use the word "liberal," which was the tag his
father placed on Mr. Dukakis at the time. But that was clearly what
the Texas governor meant. And what he intended was to persuade
voters that prosperity was a potentially fragile thing and that Mr.
Gore was not its surest protector but its direst threat, someone
who would not use the projected federal surpluses in the right way.
Mr. Bush began an effort to wrest the issue of prosperity at
least partly away from Mr. Gore this week when he warned that the
vice president was not taking the necessary steps to end an
"education recession" that imperiled the American economy down the
line.
Today, he warned that too much new government spending could have
the same effect. He said that his own proposal for a sweeping tax
cut of $1.3 trillion over 10 years was, in fact, "an insurance
policy against an economic slowdown or a recession."
Douglas Hattaway, a spokesman for the Gore campaign, called Mr.
Bush's assessments "absolutely laughable."
Mr. Hattaway acknowledged that Mr. Gore's 10-year budget plan
called for higher expenditures in "education, health care, Medicare
and the environment." But he said Mr. Gore's proposal for an
estimated $500 billion in tax cuts over 10 years less than half
the size of Mr. Bush's made that spending affordable.
By contrast, Mr. Hattaway said, Mr. Bush's budget "wastes most of
the surplus on a massive tax cut and keeps the nation in debt."
Asked about Mr. Bush's pledge not to raise payroll taxes for
Social Security, Mr. Hattaway said, "Did he say, `Read my lips'?
The last time a Bush made a silly pledge like that, he broke it."
Mr. Hattaway said Mr. Gore would not be making a similar vow,
because the vice president had already outlined a plan for
safeguarding Social Security that did not involve a tax increase.
Mr. Bush mentioned Mr. Clinton twice and twice flattered him in
comparison with Mr. Gore.
Previously, Mr. Bush had loudly rued the possibility of "four more
years of Clinton-Gore" and implied that the vice president was a
participant in an administration that, in Mr. Bush's view, was
guilty of serious ethical lapses, divisive partisanship and failed
leadership.
But today, Mr. Bush described Mr. Gore as an entirely different
kind of politician from Mr. Clinton, one who had "left the vital
center of American politics" and headed left, leaving behind a
moderate group of Democrats that he championed.
"He has claimed to invent many things," Mr. Bush said, referring
to that organization, "but he did help invent the Democratic
Leadership Council."
If the country truely is conservative leaning, then this could start to really hurt Gore--as it should. As we talk to friends who might be undecided, remember, Gore is spending roughtly 900 billion OVER the non Social Security Surplus !
From NYT:
Giving Praise to Clinton, Bush Says Gore Is Flawed http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/29/politics/29BUSH.html
September 29, 2000
By FRANK BRUNI
GREEN BAY, Wis., Sept. 28 After more than a year of trying to hang
President Clinton around Vice President Al Gore's neck, Gov. George
W. Bush took the opposite tack today, saying the main problem with
Mr. Gore was that he was not enough like his boss.
In a speech to workers at a manufacturing plant here, Mr. Bush
tacitly praised Mr. Clinton's past calls for an end to "big
government" and said Mr. Gore was not heeding them.
Instead, the vice president had "cast his lot with the old
Democratic Party" in proposing a new level of federal spending and
regulation that Mr. Bush said would endanger the country's current
prosperity.
"The vice president was seated right behind Bill Clinton at the
State of the Union when the president declared, `The era of big
government is over,' " Mr. Bush said, referring to Mr. Clinton's
address in January 1996. "Apparently, the message never took."
"My opponent seemed interested in reinventing government," Mr.
Bush said, alluding to one of Mr. Gore's signature phrases. "Now he
seems interested only in expanding it. For him, big government has
never really been dead. It's simply been biding its time, waiting
for its next chance."
Those comments made up some of the sharpened language that Mr.
Bush unveiled today to make the case that electing Mr. Gore might
mean a return to "the old ways of tax and spend."
Pressing the point, Mr. Bush called on Mr. Gore to promise
unequivocally that he would never raise the payroll taxes for
Social Security to keep the entitlement program financially
solvent. Mr. Bush has made that pledge.
The references to Mr. Clinton revealed a fresh tactic in Mr.
Bush's intrinsically difficult quest to persuade Americans that
they should unseat an incumbent administration in a period of
unparalleled prosperity.
Mr. Bush was essentially saying that electing Mr. Gore would not
be like re-electing Mr. Clinton, because Mr. Gore was less prot g
than dissident.
"He is proposing the largest increase in federal spending in 35
years, since the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson," Mr. Bush
said. "The vice president's spending plan proposes three times more
in new spending than Bill Clinton proposed in 1992. If the vice
president gets elected, the era of big government being over is
over. And so, too, I fear, could be our prosperity."
In casting Mr. Gore as financially profligate and trying to plant
fears that he might raise taxes, Mr. Bush sounded much like his
father did in 1988, when then-Vice President George Bush waged a
successful campaign for the presidency against Michael S. Dukakis,
then the governor of Massachusetts.
Mr. Bush did not use the word "liberal," which was the tag his
father placed on Mr. Dukakis at the time. But that was clearly what
the Texas governor meant. And what he intended was to persuade
voters that prosperity was a potentially fragile thing and that Mr.
Gore was not its surest protector but its direst threat, someone
who would not use the projected federal surpluses in the right way.
Mr. Bush began an effort to wrest the issue of prosperity at
least partly away from Mr. Gore this week when he warned that the
vice president was not taking the necessary steps to end an
"education recession" that imperiled the American economy down the
line.
Today, he warned that too much new government spending could have
the same effect. He said that his own proposal for a sweeping tax
cut of $1.3 trillion over 10 years was, in fact, "an insurance
policy against an economic slowdown or a recession."
Douglas Hattaway, a spokesman for the Gore campaign, called Mr.
Bush's assessments "absolutely laughable."
Mr. Hattaway acknowledged that Mr. Gore's 10-year budget plan
called for higher expenditures in "education, health care, Medicare
and the environment." But he said Mr. Gore's proposal for an
estimated $500 billion in tax cuts over 10 years less than half
the size of Mr. Bush's made that spending affordable.
By contrast, Mr. Hattaway said, Mr. Bush's budget "wastes most of
the surplus on a massive tax cut and keeps the nation in debt."
Asked about Mr. Bush's pledge not to raise payroll taxes for
Social Security, Mr. Hattaway said, "Did he say, `Read my lips'?
The last time a Bush made a silly pledge like that, he broke it."
Mr. Hattaway said Mr. Gore would not be making a similar vow,
because the vice president had already outlined a plan for
safeguarding Social Security that did not involve a tax increase.
Mr. Bush mentioned Mr. Clinton twice and twice flattered him in
comparison with Mr. Gore.
Previously, Mr. Bush had loudly rued the possibility of "four more
years of Clinton-Gore" and implied that the vice president was a
participant in an administration that, in Mr. Bush's view, was
guilty of serious ethical lapses, divisive partisanship and failed
leadership.
But today, Mr. Bush described Mr. Gore as an entirely different
kind of politician from Mr. Clinton, one who had "left the vital
center of American politics" and headed left, leaving behind a
moderate group of Democrats that he championed.
"He has claimed to invent many things," Mr. Bush said, referring
to that organization, "but he did help invent the Democratic
Leadership Council."