Democrats today intensified their efforts to portray Republicans as more concerned about corporate interests than laid-off workers and to pin blame for the recession on President Bush.
nytimes.com
Republicans responded with a scathing counterattack, saying Democrats were trying to capitalize politically on the economic effects of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The exchange suggested that both parties saw the weakening economy as a potent political issue likely to return to the forefront of the national agenda as soon as the war in Afghanistan begins drawing to a close.
Their initial skirmishes have been centered on efforts by Congress to pass an economic stimulus plan to help the nation recover from the first recession since Mr. Bush's father was in the White House. The two sides have been deadlocked on the issue for weeks.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said it would begin running radio commercials in House districts around the country next week criticizing Republicans for the stimulus bill they pushed through the House in October. The bill focuses primarily on tax breaks for business, including a provision that would repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax and allow profitable companies to claim 15 years of accumulated tax credits.
In addition, a liberal advocacy group headed by the Democratic strategist James Carville said it planned to run newspaper advertisements portraying corporate lobbyists as pigs gorging themselves at a Republican trough.
The Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said the White House appeared sensitive about what he called "the Bush economy." Mr. Daschle also blamed the tax cut that Mr. Bush won earlier this year for tipping the government budget from surplus into deficit.
But what enraged Republicans most was a remark by Representative Nita M. Lowey of New York, the chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in an interview with USA Today. Mrs. Lowey said Republicans' vote in favor of the House stimulus bill was "unpatriotic, inappropriate, wrong" at a time of rising unemployment.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, said it was "sad" that Democrats "would seek to profit politically from the slowdown in the economy caused in part by the events of Sept. 11."
Mr. Hastert said the intent of the House bill was to create jobs and help the economy. "Nita Lowey's language is unfortunate," he said, "and her tactics are inappropriate."
Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, noted that the economy began cooling off in early 2000, during the Clinton administration, and that the slowdown was "well under way" by the time Mr. Bush took office in January.
But Mr. Fleischer said the president "thinks the job of leaders in Washington is not to point fingers but to find solutions." Mr. Bush has said the fate of stimulus legislation rests with the Democratic-controlled Senate, where a bill remains stalled. |
