Kerry Denounces Special Corporate Favors
By MARY DALRYMPLE, Associated Press Writer
story.news.yahoo.com
BELOIT, Wis. - Democrat John Kerry, in a veiled
swipe at Vice President Dick Cheney, said Tuesday
that he won't dole out special favors to corporations if elected president.
"My vice president of the United States will
never meet secretly with polluters who want to
rewrite the environmental laws," the
presidential nominee told a cheering crowd
packed into a hockey arena.
The barb referred to Cheney, who met with
industry officials while drafting proposals for
new energy laws. Democrats want more
information about those meetings and have
argued that Cheney, the former head of the
Halliburton Co., had allowed the loosening of
clean air and water rules at the behest of
corporations.
The town hall meeting was billed as an
opportunity for Kerry to talk about the
economy and his plan to balance the budget.
Kerry wants to roll back President Bush
(news - web sites)'s tax cuts for families
making more than $200,000 annually and rid the tax code of narrow
breaks that help powerful companies who contribute to political
campaigns.
Kerry said he counts $65 billion that goes to corporations "for no really
good reason at all."
"You go through those pages, ladies and gentlemen, and there's
gobbledygook that is hard to interpret," he said. "The only people who
can interpret it are the people who paid for it with the campaign finance
system."
Responding to Kerry's remarks, the Bush-Cheney campaign said the
comments on corporations was a personal attack on Cheney. "This is
part of his bizarre, personal diatribe that he issued at the convention
during his acceptance speech," said spokesman Terry Holt.
Holt also argued that Kerry's plan to roll back tax cuts for wealthier
taxpayers means a tax increase on small business.
"John Kerry's economic plan would derail this economic recovery by
raising taxes on those who create jobs in this country," he said.
Kerry also promised to cut the federal deficit in half during four years. To
do that, he said, he wants the power to veto individual spending
decisions made by Congress and to enforce budget caps with automatic
spending cuts.
The White House last week said it expected this year's federal deficit to
reach $445 billion. That's less than the White House budget office
previously estimated, but it would still be a record in dollar terms.
Kerry's two-week campaign trip through battleground states takes him
from Wisconsin to Iowa. His bus caravan may cross paths with Bush on
Wednesday as both candidates appear in Davenport, Iowa, around the
same time. Bush lost Iowa to Al Gore (news - web sites) by fewer than
5,000 votes in 2000.
Kerry stopped late Tuesday at a school gym in Dubuque, Iowa, where he
told the audience he could bring back the economic boom of the late
1990s.
"All you have to do is measure what we did because in the 1990s we
balanced the budget, we paid down the debt," Kerry said. "We lifted up
the middle class, and we can do it again. We just need to believe in
ourselves."
Kerry arrived in Dubuque after stopping at several small towns on rural
highways leaving Wisconsin.
In Monroe, Wis., the candidate and his wife stopped at Baumgartner's
tavern, where Teresa Heinz Kerry ordered a Limburger cheese sandwich
with raw onions and mustard on rye bread. Next was the Joseph Huber
Brewing Co., the oldest continuously operating brewery in Wisconsin.
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