For the relatively few friends of tough mindedness on this emotion laden board (from the Louisville Courier Journal):
Gore for president
Published: October 22, 2000
HOWEVER the presidential campaign goes from
here, American voters will have clear alternatives in
both substance and style when they choose
between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W.
Bush of Texas on Election Day.
William Safire, the generally conservative and
pro-Republican columnist for The New York Times,
put it well -- though in understated fashion
regarding Gov. Bush -- in a column published
Friday in The Forum: "Gore is truly tough-minded,
stupefyingly experienced and unabashedly divisive,
while Bush is truly amiable and not all that deep
and all too eager to unify."
Those distinctions seem to turn many voters away
from the combative Mr. Gore and toward the more
genial Gov. Bush. They move us -- and we hope a
sufficient number of voters -- in the opposite
direction: We find Mr. Gore, the Democrat, to be
clearly the superior candidate, and we endorse him.
Mr. Gore offers sounder proposals for safeguarding
Americans' economic security and for advancing
American interests and principles abroad.
To his credit, Gov. Bush, as governor and
candidate, has been more moderate and
non-ideological than much of the Republican Party.
As with Mr. Gore's choice of Sen. Joe Lieberman,
Gov. Bush has selected a running mate, Dick
Cheney, capable of assuming the presidency, if
necessary.
However, Gov. Bush demonstrates an intellect and
grasp of issues that are mediocre, to be generous.
His arguments rely heavily on memorized
clich{AAes and bromides. His claims of "leadership"
and consensus-building skills ring hollow when they
rest on such marginal fitness for the presidency.
Of the two principal third-party candidates, neither
the Green Party's Ralph Nader, offering Luddite
opposition to corporations and the global economy,
nor the Reform Party's Pat Buchanan, appealing to
protectionist and anti-immigrant sentiments, merits
serious consideration.
Domestically, the central challenge for the next
president is to use the current, but temporary,
budget surplus wisely and to prepare for the years
ahead when the surplus -- without shifts in
revenues and/or expenditures -- will disappear.
Gov. Bush threatens to deplete the surplus with a
massive tax cut weighted heavily and
unconscionably toward the very rich and by diverting
Social Security funds into private investment
accounts.
Mr. Gore stated the dilemma expertly during the
second debate: "If you squander the surplus on a
huge tax cut that goes mostly to those at the top,
then you can't make education the top priority. If
the tax cut is your No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 priority, you
can't do education. You can't do both. You have to
choose."
Gov. Bush has shown no intention of choosing,
however. He alternately ignores the challenge,
dismisses it as "fuzzy math," makes a ludicrous
claim such as that the poor will be the biggest
beneficiaries of his plan or, as in the final debate,
is simply unable to recall enough information about
his own tax proposal to fill two minutes' time.
Mr. Gore's tax plan follows the Clinton era formula of stressing credits for such
expenses as college education, child care, retirement savings and health insurance.
Whether this is a better approach than offering everyone savings through reduced
tax rates in the middle and lower brackets, as Gov. Bush's plan would accomplish,
is an issue for legitimate debate. But at the least, Mr. Gore's approach doesn't turn
over so much of the surplus to the rich.
Gov. Bush's plan for Social Security, the most popular American safety-net program,
is even more radical.
His proposal to allow some Social Security income to be diverted into private
accounts would empty the trust fund almost 15 years ahead of projections.
Moreover, younger workers for whom private accounts were established would
receive lower benefits, striking at the program's central promise of a guaranteed
income for retirees.
Mr. Gore has lacked the boldness to address the inevitable hard choice for saving
the program: higher taxes or lower benefits. But he has promised to pump more
money from general revenues into Social Security, and he would not threaten the
fund through private accounts or oversized tax cuts.
Meanwhile, neither candidate adequately tackles the even tougher issue of
Medicare's solvency. The threat posed by a predictable increase in recipients in an
aging population is magnified by the uncertainties of spiraling health costs, which in
turn are certain to be expanded by the candidates' plans to provide prescription
drug coverage.
But the Clinton-Gore administration did engineer cuts in Medicare payments in 1993
that kept the program in the black, and Mr. Gore does suggest saving the Medicare
surpluses of the next 10 years as a cushion against coming shortfalls.
Mr. Bush generally favors an approach that will direct seniors toward managed care.
Given that government coffers would be badly depleted by the Bush tax cut, that
care would likely be minimal for elderly people who cannot afford to supplement
their coverage with their own money.
Taxes and the surplus also cast shadows across the ambitious education policies
that both candidates have stressed.
Mr. Gore's proposals, though appealing when taken one by one, are flawed. His A-Z
approach -- including universal preschool, hiring new teachers and subsidizing their
pay and training, school construction and more charter schools -- would cost, by his
estimate, $115 billion. Those expenditures depend on budget expectations that
are likely too optimistic, but Mr. Gore probably could find money for some of his
plans.
Gov. Bush has a big-state governor's perspective on education. And while we have
reservations about his plans for private school vouchers for low-income students in
failing schools, he makes his case well, as he does for emphasis on reading, high
standards, accountability and lifting poor children. His proposals would cost only a
fraction of Mr. Gore's, but as the Vice President rightly asks, Would Mr. Bush's tax
cuts leave room for any increases in federal education spending?
In the other critical area, foreign affairs, Mr. Gore's experience in Congress and as
Vice President is wide and deep. While he certainly favors choosing America's fights
carefully, he envisions an assertive American policy that promotes democracy and
American values.
While he is vague, Gov. Bush appears simply more hesitant to use American power.
If, as he implies, his chief foreign-policy advisers would be Colin Powell and
Condoleezza Rice, he is certain to follow a less muscular policy that underestimates
the importance of American leadership.
When he tries to be specific, the thinness of Gov. Bush's knowledge can be
astonishing. During the second debate, for example, Gov. Bush supported the
calamitous American intervention in Lebanon in 1983, said he would not have
intervened in the face of imminent chaos off our shores in Haiti, seemed not to
know that the great majority of peacekeeping troops in the Balkans are Europeans
and not Americans, and implied that there are no countries with black populations
of significance to the United States.
A particular worry is Gov. Bush's premature embrace of a missile defense system.
In addition to endangering nuclear arms control, the missile defense program
threatens to become a sinkhole for countless billions of dollars and as yet holds no
realistic promise of working. Mr. Gore is also supportive, but wants to proceed more
deliberately.
There are, of course, other important issues.
Gov. Bush has muted his opposition to abortion, and it may be that he recognizes
abortion rights are here to stay, despite his own personal convictions. But he may
also be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Mr. Gore's support of a woman's right to choose
an abortion is unequivocal, and he is far more to be trusted in protecting this right
and choosing wisely to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court and federal bench.
Moreover, whatever his fund-raising sins in the past, Mr. Gore strongly endorses the
McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. Gov. Bush backs alternatives that would,
in practice, stymie reform.
We wish that Mr. Gore had stressed his powerful environmental commitment. We
wish both candidates had addressed such neglected areas as race, combatting
poverty, stemming the AIDS epidemic and reassessing the federal war on drugs. In
such a tight race, both men obviously steered away from issues that could alienate
groups of voters.
But even with some blank spaces, the choice is clear:
Al Gore offers superior stature, ability and vision for national leadership. He should
be elected. |
