Gore Vows to Balance U.S. Budget Every Year

Vice President Al Gore glanced back to the recession-mired past, looked forward blithely to a vision of prosperity forever and promised Tuesday that, as president, he would deliver balanced budgets and a reduced federal debt year after year.

That was his big-picture view of the economy.

On the ground level, he offered coffee and doughnuts.

Gore began his day at a bacon-and-egg breakfast with business professionals, where he discussed the broad concepts of his approach to the economy, offering no daylight between the course he would follow and that set by President Clinton seven years ago.

He ended it with a stop at the Honey Dew Donuts shop, where the vice president purchased eight cups of coffee--cream and sugar on the side, please--and a box of pastries. Gore personally delivered the order to a group of Teamsters picketing a trucking company in near freezing temperatures.

“I want you to know I support you,” he told the picketers. Gore said their strike was against “blatant union busting.”

The chilly night scene offered a reminder of the economic distress that still shadows this state, even as it thrives on the growth potential offered by computer technology and trade.

And it presented an end-of-day exclamation point to the vice president’s theme--that George W. Bush, Bill Bradley and all the other competitors for the presidency are advocating policies that would put the current economic expansion at risk.

Referring to tax-cut proposals at the heart of the Republican campaigns, Gore told the breakfast gathering in Bedford, N.H., that Texas Gov. Bush and the other Republican candidates have endorsed a “reckless tax scheme that would immediately put our country back into deficit” while leading to an increase in short-term interest rates.

“If they are serious, it would be devastating to our economy,” he said.

And neither the Republicans nor Bradley, Gore said of his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, would “save a penny for fixing” budgetary problems such as Social Security and Medicare.

Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser responded Tuesday by questioning why Gore would boast of rosy times. “I doubt the 44 million Americans without health insurance and the tens of millions who can barely afford it think that everything is perfect in this country,” he said.

The New Hampshire economy is freighted with history on which elections have turned and presidencies have fallen. It was the sour condition in New Hampshire in 1992 that gave an early signal about unhappiness with President Bush and opened the door for Bill Clinton’s triumph that year.

Tuesday, at an American Legion post in Manchester, Gore was addressed on the topic by Lionel LeBlanc--”master sergeant, U.S. Air Force, retired,” identifying himself with everything but a salute. Notwithstanding the sunny economic conditions that prevail this year in New Hampshire, LeBlanc said the economy remains a crucial issue.

“A lot of people hold three jobs to make ends meet,” he said, after hearing Gore speak on military and veterans issues. “There are a lot of jobs, yeah, but they’re [at] McDonald’s. There are no manufacturing jobs. The plants have closed. Not everybody is that advanced in electronic technology to work in computers and software.”

Yet, illustrating how much conditions have improved here, a recent Los Angeles Times poll in New Hampshire found that such other issues as health care and the environment rank well ahead of the economy in attracting voters’ attention.

Gore’s handling of economic policy is a particularly difficult political matter. He wants to provide a road map of where he would drive his administration’s policy without appearing to simply mimic the Clinton course.

But the politics of the issue raise this question: In the likely event that the economic expansion continues--setting a historic record for longevity early next year--how much does Gore want to distance himself from such a successful administration policy?

So Gore promised Tuesday largely to stay the course--and he reminded his audience of the bleak conditions that prevailed in 1992 when the state’s unemployment, now at 2.5%, was soaring.

“If you elect me president, I will balance the budget, and better, every single year,” Gore said. “I will further reduce the debt every single year of my presidency.”

Melding his promise to adhere to Clinton administration policies with the notion that he would introduce change, Gore said: “I am determined to continue the prosperity and to continue the policies that created that prosperity” by introducing “sweeping changes” in the nation’s education system to prepare students for the high-tech requirements a vibrant economy will demand.