And right behind Davis is Gephardt. With this program, he will be in tune with his base, but nobody else.
Promising a Change of Direction
Gephardt Adopts Policies That Other Democrats Shun
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 22, 2003; Page A01
No major Democratic presidential candidate is promising to change the country more dramatically than Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.).
At a time when many voters complain of little distinction between the two political parties, Gephardt is calling for a bigger and more activist federal government, one markedly different from the one envisioned by President Bush and by the other contenders for the Democratic nomination.
A Gephardt administration would impose higher taxes on individuals, restrict foreign trade and pick up a huge chunk of the nation's soaring health care tab. At a time of near-record deficits, Gephardt would lobby Congress to increase spending for several education programs, including a universal preschool program, and create a new energy program.
So far, he has proposed upwards of $3 trillion or more in new programs, including doubling the budget for homeland security and tripling the budget for the National Institutes of Health, according to a review of his campaign promises by The Washington Post. (It is impossible to calculate a precise dollar figure, because his campaign has not detailed the cost of many of his proposals.)
And there is more to come: Gephardt plans to unveil a proposal next month to create a government trust fund for long-term homeland security needs, according to a senior adviser. In October, he will detail a plan for the federal government to help cover the college costs of 2.5 million students who agree to teach in public schools for at least five years, the adviser said.
To help pay for these programs, Gephardt would repeal all the Bush tax cuts enacted over the past three years.
"This election needs to be about choices -- big choices," Gephardt said in an interview this week. "If it's just a little different than the incumbent . . . people will choose the incumbent. It is my belief we need have to give a real contrast."
To be sure, all the Democrats running are promising big changes if they are elected president.
Yet Gephardt is offering voters the starkest alternative to Bush among the candidates leading in the polls -- and one that carries the steepest price tag. In many ways, he would return the country -- and the Democratic Party -- to where it was before the 1992 election of Bill Clinton by emphasizing government programs over tax cuts for individuals, and protections for workers and the environment over unfettered global trade, several Democrats said. On trade, for instance, Gephardt has promised to fight for tough labor standards, which would likely complicate and possibly derail efforts to complete a trade pact with five Central American nations.
While many of the contenders are rushing to adopt the centrist politics Clinton practiced, Gephardt talks proudly of repealing tax cuts, slapping restrictions on foreign trade and providing universal health coverage. He sounds more like Lyndon B. Johnson or Harry S. Truman than Clinton or even Al Gore, who won the popular vote but lost the election in 2000.
Every Democratic candidate would peel back some of the Bush tax cuts, and all favor new programs to help provide health care coverage to the uninsured. All are offering new domestic programs that would make their promises of balancing the budget hard to achieve, while detailing few spending cuts to pay for their ideas. On social issues and the environment, the entire field is diametrically opposed to most policies backed by Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress.
Like most other leading presidential contenders, Gephardt also would oppose most restrictions on abortions, appoint more liberal judges and curtail Bush-backed social experiments such as school vouchers and expanding the role of religious organizations in providing government-funded services
Gephardt's focus on workers and the uninsured is a big hit with many Democratic activists, especially union members and those who believe Clinton and other so-called New Democrats have sacrificed the party's core values to win elections.
But many Democrats -- including other candidates for the party's nomination -- warn that Gephardt's agenda does not comport with the views of most Americans. With contemporary elections decided by the swing voters -- those who don't identify religiously with either party -- Gephardt's ideas strike these Democrats as way too expensive and potentially devastating to the party's hopes of winning back the White House.
"People are skeptical of being promised the moon," said Elaine C. Kamarck, a former adviser to the Gore-Lieberman campaign. Gephardt is proposing "exchanging one kind of budgetary disaster for another" by advocating a $2.5 trillion health care plan and erasing the Bush tax cuts. "I just think the entire approach is doomed to failure" because Americans aren't ready for sweeping changes to the health care system, she said.
Jano Cabrera, spokesman for presidential candidate Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), said Gephardt "basically wants to raise taxes to pay for a number of new massive government programs. The country and the Democratic Party abandoned that way of thinking long ago and for good reason -- it neither works nor wins elections."
Even some of Gephardt's supporters are not fully embracing his proposed expansion of the federal government. House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), a Gephardt supporter, said he needs to study the health plan before deciding whether to endorse it and doesn't support a full repeal of the Bush tax cuts.
"It concerns me that when we consider programs, we consider them in the context of dollars we have available," Hoyer said. "What Dick is doing is putting forward parameters of what we need to be doing. . . . [Presidential candidates] need to make distinctions. Dick has tried to make his distinction in terms of investment" in new programs, particularly health care.
Gephardt is getting mixed reviews on the campaign trail. Polls show him fighting former Vermont governor Howard Dean for first place in Iowa, a must-win state for Gephardt; battling for third in New Hampshire; and bunched near the top with several other candidates in national polls.
One of the biggest challenges facing Gephardt is explaining how the country, which is projected to run deficits next year approaching $500 billion, can afford his new programs, especially the health care plan. Kenneth E. Thorpe, the Emory University health care expert asked by Gephardt to price his plan, estimates it will cost $2.5 trillion over 10 years.
Gephardt wants to provide refundable tax credits to business owners, governments and not-for-profit organizations to cover 60 percent or more of the cost of providing health coverage to workers. The plan would cover 97 percent of Americans, he estimates, but it would not mandate the level of coverage that must be provided. The Gephardt plan is more than twice as expensive as any plan from a major presidential candidate.
"It's a mistake," Dean said. "Once you go down the road of being a spendthrift, you have got a real problem. Democrats are not going to win if people think we are just the same business-as-usual politicians promising everything you can and not being able to pay for it."
Gephardt said he would pay for the new programs by repealing the Bush tax cuts, generating economic growth and trimming spending in other, mostly unspecified, areas. But his staff estimates that repealing the tax cuts, easily his biggest cost saver, would free up between $1.4 trillion and $1.8 trillion, or roughly half what he needs to pay for his ambitious programs without driving budget deficits to historic highs.
Moreover, Gephardt has promised to reinstate tax breaks for married couples, parents and inheritors, which would cut into the savings from repealing the Bush tax cuts. He also favors tax breaks for companies that contribute money to employee pensions, energy conservation and student loans. His campaign has not calculated how much any of these ideas would cost.
"We are going to have to phase it, time it and work the problem until we get to the conclusion that we need," Gephardt said. "Over time, we can fit these in." Gephardt said he also would close loopholes in the tax code that benefit big corporations, and push other tax changes to help fund his programs. His critics said it will be impossible to find budgetary savings of that magnitude.
Still, Gephardt will continue to roll out new ideas this fall. In addition to new education and homeland security plans, the candidate said he will outline ideas for providing a prescription drug benefit to seniors as part of Medicare. While Bush favors a $400 billion plan that would encourage greater private-sector participation in Medicare, Gephardt has cosponsored legislation that relies solely on the federal government to provide the prescription drug benefit at nearly twice the cost of the Bush plan.
Gephardt said the key to making all of this work is generating the kind of economic growth Clinton did in the 1990s. The country needs to "put together a series of actions that all together allow the American people -- because they do it -- [to] create real economic growth at a brisk rate. If you can achieve this, and that's the goal of all of this -- to get the economy to expand . . . you will solve your deficit problems and be able to afford these kinds of programs."
Gephardt said his ideas would move the country in a dramatically different direction than Bush is taking it. "I just totally disagree with the Bush programs on the merits. He's just leading us in the wrong direction."
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