Dole, Clinton Duel Over Taxes

With dueling bridge metaphors and arguments over taxes, President Clinton, Bob Dole and their running mates circled the Midwest on Monday as they opened the final phase of a presidential campaign that, so far, has seen the incumbent transformed from a political has-been to an odds-on favorite for reelection.

In St. Louis with Jack Kemp, Dole mocked Clinton’s calls for a “bridge to the 21st century,” saying that Clinton’s would be “a toll bridge . . . a bridge to a future of higher taxes . . . “ By contrast, he declared, he would be “a bridge to lower taxes.”

Citing Ronald Reagan as an example of someone who successfully cut taxes, Dole said that “sometimes it seems that our opponents have a little--a million little plans for how government can dictate to the American people what it thinks is best. Jack Kemp and I have one big plan . . . Give American families back more of their hard-earned money.”

Clinton, diving into what he called “the great tax debate,” remembered Reagan, too, but to opposite effect, warning that Dole’s proposal for $548 billion in tax cuts over five years would inevitably swell the deficit.

“Our tax cut plan is paid for--line by line, dime by dime,” the president said.

“The other guys will say . . . , ‘We’ll give you more money, vote for us. Why do you care about the deficit?’ ” Clinton said.

“In Washington, we have all these political consultants,” who tell candidates that “nobody cares” about the deficit, he added. But, he warned, a larger deficit will force up interest rates meaning “a higher home mortgage payment, a higher car payment, a higher credit card payment” and fewer investments to create new jobs.

Dole, picking up a line used by nearly every trailing candidate, compared himself to former President Harry S. Truman, saying, “Like Truman, I am going to win a come-from-behind victory for president of the United States.”

Should Dole succeed, however, his effort would dwarf Truman’s. Despite visible fatigue and a hoarse and raspy voice, Clinton enters the final stage of what he calls “the last campaign of my life” in an enviable spot: No candidate with a double-digit lead on Labor Day has lost a presidential election since modern polling began in the 1930s.

Dole’s task would seem beyond achievement but for one fact--just last year, Clinton seemed as much a longshot for victory as his Republican challenger appears now.

Both sides agree the election is likely to be won or lost in the Midwest, where each chose to open his campaign.

Here, just outside Green Bay, where he addressed more than 20,000 people at a park on the banks of the Fox River, Clinton reprised his convention acceptance speech--reeling off a long list of administration accomplishments and declaring that the country is once again back on the right track.

“We shouldn’t change [course] now. We should keep right on going,” he said.

From De Pere, Clinton flew to Milwaukee to attend a Labor Day festival.

Clinton returned Monday night to Washington, having canceled a planned campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pa., because of fatigue. He is scheduled to campaign at the end of the week in Florida--a state that has been reliably Republican in recent elections, but where Democrats believe they now have a serious opportunity.

While Clinton stumped in Wisconsin, a closely fought swing state, Vice President Al Gore hit more partisan notes as he campaigned next door--in more solidly Democratic Minnesota.

At a Labor Day picnic at a park in St. Paul, sponsored by local AFL-CIO affiliates, Gore declared that the race for the presidency is a war between the champions of working families and the proponents of trickle-down economics.

“We are in a fight today in 1996,” a revved-up Gore said. “The battle lines are clear. Americans have to decide. . . . Which side are you on?”

On his first solo outing since a much-hailed speech at last week’s Democratic convention, Gore argued that the administration has already protected the interests of working Americans against what he described as the Gingrich-Dole Congress, which has “fought against working families right down the line.”

He ran off a list of battles the administration has won against Republican opposition--enacting the Family and Medical Leave Act, increasing the minimum wage and killing proposed legislation that would have weakened unions.

“You know we’ve been fighting for you,” Gore said. If Americans chose the wrong side and elect Dole, he warned, “working people would see a lot of rights . . . very much at risk.”

Republicans have been hoping to separate union members from union leadership, which has devoted millions of dollars to help elect Democrats. But Gore’s speech seemed to convince at least some in the crowd.

Joe Schaefer, 37, an auto mechanic who brought his three children to the parade, said he now expects to vote for Clinton and Gore in 1996, even though he voted for Reagan and Bush in the previous four elections.

“I need a little more selling, but I’m probably going to vote Democratic. It’s because I’m voting less on a moral agenda and more on an economic one,” said Schaefer, who is strongly opposed to abortion.

Howard Rosten, however, is still wobbling. His wife, Paula, said she has “sort of” made up her mind for the Democrats, but Howard wants to vote for whoever will be best for the family’s bank account. So far, he said, he is not sure who that is.

Rosten said he likes Dole’s proposal to cut income tax rates 15% across the board but he cannot quite believe it is genuine. “I’m not sure it’s not all rhetoric--from both sides.”

Those comments signify the sort of problem Dole continues to face. He has tried to address the situation in part by artificial means of generating excitement--his St. Louis event was at least the eighth that he has labeled his “official campaign kickoff” since he announced for president 17 months ago and the sixth in the last four months.

More substantive, he has dispatched Kemp to blue-collar areas. After the St. Louis stop, the Republican running mate headed to Flint, Mich., an industrial town that became synonymous with economic decline in the 1980s.

“We want Flint to be at full employment with rising wages,” he said at an event held at a home owned by a factory worker and a substitute teacher.

Kemp vowed to scrap the entire tax code and stop the “bully tactics of the IRS,” a remark that drew cheers and praise from some in his audience.

“I worked hard all my life for GM and I appreciate this country,” said Carl Steingraeber, a retired General Motors administrator. “My daughter and son-in-law have also worked hard. The taxes they pay are too high. We have too many people asking the government to do what they should do for themselves.”

Dole is also hoping to turn voters around by constant repetition of his arguments on two subjects--taxes and drugs.

In St. Louis, he told a cheering, sweating, sprawling crowd of about 20,000 beneath the landmark St. Louis Gateway Arch--almost certainly the largest crowd of his campaign so far--that he believes “it’s time to give a break to every American who works and pays taxes.”

Reiterating his tax-cut pledge, the beaming Republican candidate promised that “even former President Clinton will get the tax cut when he’s gone.”

Dole decried what he characterized as a tax burden so steep that it forces both parents in a two-income family to work simply to make ends meet.

“Our country hasn’t had a tax cut in 10 years, and you’ve waited long enough,” he said in a podium-pounding address. “And you’re going to get one starting next year. When Jack Kemp and I are elected, the wait will be over.”

On the drug issue, Dole took aim at what he characterized as the administration’s listless efforts to fight drug abuse and for the rise in illegal drug use on the president’s watch.

“Nowhere is leadership more necessary than in the war against drugs--a war we’re going to start and help your children, help your grandchildren,” Dole said.

What Dole did not do was fill in the gaps in his ambitious and controversial economic program--the ones that show how he plans to pay for the hefty tax cuts he is promising a skeptical nation.

Traveling with Dole from Missouri to Utah, where he is scheduled to address the American Legion convention today, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters that such an explication--while important to voters--is premature. And he dismissed polls that show a majority of Americans do not think that taxes can be cut while balancing the budget.

“A whole bunch of ‘em don’t believe it, but a whole bunch of ‘em want it--60%,” said McCain. “It reflects that a lot of people are skeptical, but there’s a majority of Americans that think they’re paying too much taxes.”