Gore Hits Bush on Taxes

Aug. 21 -- Vice President Al Gore is putting the core Republican issue of tax cuts front and center, as he seeks to contrast his economic agenda with that of his GOP rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Dueling Tax Plans

Gore is highlighting his own tax cut proposal while continuing to portray his opponent’s as a “risky scheme” that would squander the projected budget surplus, jeopardize the booming economy and disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

“They would focus the benefits of a giant tax cut on the wealthy at the expense of everyone else,” Gore told supporters at a rally in Quincy, Ill. this afternoon, “We don’t begrudge the wealthy a tax cut, but if it puts our economy into deficits again and offers just peanuts to middle class families … that’s not a good deal.”

Bush has proposed an across-the-board reduction in marginal income tax rates, which his economic advisers claim would cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years. But the Gore camp pegs the 10-year cost of the Bush plan at $2.1 trillion, and argues that such a sweeping tax cut would make new spending in vital areas such as education and health care impossible.

The vice president has offered a more modest half-trillion dollar tax cut plan that includes tax credits for education costs, retirement savings and health and child care costs. Gore says his approach would provide greater relief to middle class taxpayers than Bush’s proposal.

“I’m not going to stand for it,” he said of his opponent’s approach. “I will never support a tax cut for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, that wrecks our economy in the process … I favor, instead, tax cuts for middle class families.”

The Price of Diet Coke

Gore also repeated an assertion he made in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles last week: that under the Bush proposal, a middle class family would receive a tax cut that amounts to a paltry 62 cents per day.