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Change Your Life! |
Gore’s “Broken Promises Tour” to battleground states |
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June 14, 2000
TRENTON (AP) - Vice President Al Gore was still putting the finishing touches on the kickoff speech for his upcoming "Progress and prosperity tour" when Republicans began heckling it.
The Republican National Committee suggested a better name would be the "Broken Promises Tour." New York Gov. George Pataki said Congress and the nation's governors share credit for prosperous times, and he accused Gore of trying to claim he "invented prosperity." Gore's three-week tour through battleground states, which begins Tuesday, touches on a sensitive issue in campaign 2000: who, exactly, deserves credit for the prolonged economic expansion and resulting federal budget surplus.
Gore told a group of Democratic contributors Monday that he and President Bill Clinton deserve at least some of the credit for enacting, over much controversy, a deficit-reduction measure in 1993 that included tax increases. The vice president will press the idea again on Tuesday, when he kicks off his tour with a speech in New York City.
"Together, as a nation, we turned the biggest deficits in our history into the biggest surpluses in our history," says a draft of Gore's speech, excerpts of which were provided to The Associated Press. "None of this happened by accident. It happened because together with the American people we put into place a brand new economic strategy, one that unlocked the full potential of our people - balancing the budget, paying down the debt and investing in the best enterprise of all: People. Americans themselves." To emphasize his link with the Clinton administration economic record, Gore invited former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to join him for part of the tour. Gore will discuss health care Wednesday in Scranton, Pennsylvania, then make his pitch for modest, targeted tax cuts on Thursday in Cincinnati. Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said Friday's event will occur in the Washington, D.C., area. The tour will resume next Tuesday and hit other "key battleground states around the country," Lehane said. In his kickoff speech Tuesday in New York, Gore was expected to propose funneling Medicare's annual hospital fund surpluses into a "lock box" that would reduce the national debt and prohibit either party from using the money for other purposes. Previewing his prosperity trip on Monday, Gore told 100 supporters at a fund-raiser in New York: "Instead of the biggest deficits we now have the biggest surplus. Instead of a triple-dip recession we've seen a tripling of the stock market. ... And officially as of two months ago, we now have the longest economic expansion, the strongest economic recovery and the healthiest economy in the entire 211-year history of the American economy. That is a success story."
He said he will sketch out a three-part strategy for building on prosperous times. He pledged that, if elected president, he will reduce the federal debt every year, "invest" in programs like teacher training and prescription drug coverage, and open new markets for trade.
Monday night, Gore took part in a 90-minute televised forum sponsored by Oxygen, the new cable television network developed by Oprah Winfrey and devoted to women's issues. Oxygen promoted the event as: "Al Gore gets in touch with his feminine side."
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