Kerry Assails Deficit As Bush's Fault
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By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer
GREENSBORO, N.C. Democratic presidential candidate John
Kerry said Tuesday's projection of a record budget
deficit this election year and the continuing movement of U.S. jobs
overseas show President Bush is taking the country
down the wrong economic track.
The Congressional Budget Office predicted a $422 billion deficit,
but the Bush campaign noted that was less
than projected earlier this year and said the
improvement was due to the president's
tax-cut policies.
"Only George W. Bush could celebrate over
a record budget deficit," the loss of jobs over
the past 3 1/2 years and last weekend's
announcement of a record increase in
Medicare premiums, Kerry said.
"W stands for wrong - the wrong direction
for America," he said in a statement
released by his campaign.
Kerry was campaigning in North Carolina,
the home state of Sen. John Edwards (news
- web sites), his running mate, emphasizing
the loss of American jobs overseas and
talking about his plan to change rules that
let companies defer paying taxes on money
earned abroad.
"We give them a complete freebie," Kerry
told about 300 people, "and when I'm
president of the United States, it will take
me about a nanosecond to ask the
Congress to close that stupid loophole that
rewards companies."
North Carolina voted for Bush in 2000 by 7
percentage points but, with Bush seen as
vulnerable on job losses, the contest is
closer this year, polls indicate. The state
has lost more than 160,000 jobs during the
Bush administration, mostly in the furniture
and textile industries where free trade
policies have encouraged the export of jobs
to cheaper labor markets.
Kerry also pointed to statements by administration officials in favor of
"outsourcing" production and portrayed Bush as unsympathetic to job
losses caused by international competition.
"My value is good, old-fashioned four words: 'Made in the USA,'" Kerry
said.
Bush's campaign said Kerry has "outsourcers" among his own advisers
and business supporters, and that the Democrat's plan would do little to
reverse the trend.
"Kerry's shifting positions on outsourcing are another reason that he
faces a credibility problem with the American people," said Bush
spokesman Steve Schmidt.
Bush has proposed doubling the number of people served by job training,
increasing funding for community colleges and creating "opportunity
zones" of reduced taxes, improved housing and training in places
hardest hit by job losses.
Kerry did not discuss the budget deficit figure in front of his audience.
But he accused Bush of making a poor decision to spend the surplus
that existed when he took office in January 2001 on a series of tax cuts
that mostly benefited the wealthy.
"He made a choice about what to do with that. I thought his was the
wrong choice because I thought it would put us into deficit," Kerry said.
Bush campaign policy director Tim Adams said, "John Kerry's plans for
$2 trillion in new spending means higher taxes on all Americans or a
budget deficit that is completely out of control."
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