Reagan’s Ultimate Insult: Dukakis ‘a True Liberal’

President Reagan took aim today at Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, calling the Democratic presidential candidate a “true liberal” who will raise taxes and overspend if elected in November.

Hitting the campaign trail with a fury, Reagan zeroed in on his familiar enemies--higher taxes and government spending--and at a new Democrat that the President declared will bring both back.

Making his first out-of-town campaign appearance on behalf of a GOP Senate candidate since January, Reagan came to Miami with the message that a vote for the Republican ticket will mean continued growth and prosperity.

“What the 1988 elections are all about is whether we continue to build on that progress and move ahead to an even brighter future, or whether we hesitate and return to those worn-out policies that bring high taxes, low-growth and a loss of direction and purpose,” Reagan told a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser for Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), running for the seat of retiring Sen. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat.

Sounding themes reminiscent of his own election battles in 1980 and 1984, Reagan leveled the same charges at Dukakis--though never by name--as he fired at Jimmy Carter and Walter F. Mondale.

“The $64-billion question is this: Should we expect that if the Democrats’ all-but-certain presidential candidate is elected that he would raise taxes?”the President asked the gathering. “In fact, he just did. Not only has he hiked taxes as governor of Massachusetts, but in the last five years, he has increased Massachusetts state spending at double the rate of federal spending.

“He has spent every dime and more of the revenue generated in his state by the Reagan-Bush recovery. . . . So, yes, the man expected to head up the Democratic ticket . . . is a true liberal who, instead of controlling government spending, raises taxes,” Reagan declared, while extolling his loyal vice president, George Bush, as no “big spender.”

The Dukakis campaign was quick to fire back.

“There he goes again,” campaign spokesman Mark Gearan said. “The fact of the matter is that the Massachusetts budget will be balanced and that tough choices on spending have been made, something that we have seen nothing of during the past eight years.

“This Administration has piled up more red ink than the presidencies of George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined,” Gearan said. “Michael Dukakis has balanced nine and soon to be 10 budgets, a track record that should be the envy of this Administration.”