Jackson Scores Dukakis on Plan to Trim Deficit

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, after wrangling for days about how to challenge his lone remaining rival, sharply criticized Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis on Saturday for his failure to make clear how he would reduce the federal budget deficit.

Jackson for the first time attached Dukakis’ name to his criticism of those who would only “manage Reaganomics,” rather than reverse it. He labeled Dukakis as “cautious” for his proposal “to collect uncollected taxes” rather than to roll back Reagan Administration tax cuts.

Jackson also questioned the effectiveness of the Massachusetts anti-drug policies for which Dukakis has claimed credit, saying that in his visits to the state he had encountered no evidence that drug use was less widespread there than elsewhere in the country.

Down the Monongahela

The direct criticism, voiced in response to questions from reporters traveling with him aboard a riverboat down the Monongahela River, came after Jackson had complained repeatedly that the media were ignoring his efforts to distinguish himself from his rival.

He said that “you have to pay for your dreams,” suggesting indirectly that Dukakis’ revenue-raising proposals were inadequate.

“If you are going to make a commitment to affordable day care, a commitment to affordable housing, a commitment to national health care, a commitment to expanded conventional forces in Europe,” Jackson said, “then one cannot reconcile those expenditures with the present budget deficit unless one is willing to in fact generate revenues through some tax adjustments.

‘Must Reverse Reaganomics’

“One cannot just manage Reaganomics,” he continued. “One must in fact reverse Reaganomics in order to shift our economy again.”

Jackson dismissed Dukakis’ anti-drug program in Massachusetts as an incomplete answer to the problem of illegal drugs, saying: “One cannot simply use it as an example of how to stop an international drug cartel sending $150 billion worth of drugs a year.

“Surely we must know that challenging our children to resist drugs is the right thing to do on the demand side. But the President must stop the flow of drugs on the supply side.”

Earlier Saturday, Jackson had pulled reporters aside before a speech to say he would make the contrast between himself and Dukakis most clear.

But he then merely weaved a long metaphor comparing himself to Dwight Gooden, the New York Mets pitcher who is a strikeout artist, and suggested that his rivals were too embarrassed to “swing and miss” at his “90-mile-an-hour fastballs.”