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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (515949)	12/26/2003 9:07:07 AM
From: tonto	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Huh? Dean fiscally conservative...(s) Dean is big government and a big spender...too. Relative Conservatism By Jeff Waksman September 22, 2003 Howard Dean's energy, passion, and contempt for President Bush have taken him into the front seat of the Democratic presidential primaries. After being fifth in the April national polls, he is now leading the way and gaining momentum every day despite John Kerry's objections. "What about my momentum?" Kerry complained to Associated Press reporters last week. "Last poll I saw I took the lead nationally." Of course, what do national polls mean when an ABC poll taken in the last week of August found that 65 percent of America couldn't name a single Democratic candidate for president? Kerry's comments were more out of desperation, as his closest opponent has graced the covers of Time and Newsweek and is setting Democratic fund-raising records. While Dean's initial success came from his appeal to the "angry left," he is now trying to mold himself as a centrist in preparation for a campaign against Bush. He claims that his biggest centrist appeal is his fiscal conservatism. What he doesn't realize is that few people outside of Vermont will confuse his economic policies for fiscal conservatism. Dean achieved initial success by energizing the anti-war left of the party and by making himself the Anti-Bush. Other Democratic leaders protested that a pure liberal, anti-war candidate would get trounced by Bush, just as McGovern was trounced by Nixon in 1972. Recognizing the need to mainstream his campaign, Dean quickly changed his message. "I'm a fiscal conservative," he said. "I'm most proud of our fiscal stability." He often reminds people that he balanced the budgets in Vermont, an impressive feat compared to Bush's half-trillion dollar deficit. From 1994 to 1996, he received an economic rating of B, the highest rating of any Democratic Governor, from the Libertarian Cato Institute. "Believe me," he once said at a Cato Institute lunch, "I'm no big-government liberal. I believe in balanced budgets, markets, and deregulation. Look at my record in Vermont." While governor, Dean also brought health insurance to nearly every citizen. According to his web site, www.deanforamerica.com, 92 percent of Vermont adults and 96 percent of children now have health insurance through his "Dr. Dynasaur" program. Was it possible that he was able to bring health insurance to nearly the entire state while still acting as a fiscal conservative? The answer can be found by looking at Dean's economic record since 1996. After promising to repeal his predecessor's tax increases, he lowered the income and sales taxes back to their pre-Richard Snelling levels (an income tax rate set at 25 percent of the federal rate and a four percent sales tax rate, respectively). Unfortunately, he quickly called the legislature back into session and raised the sales tax back up to five percent while retaining all of the other tax increases (including a nine percent tax on hotel rooms and restaurant meals). Dean's problems came from the fact that his health care plan was costing much more than he had expected. With the budget flying out of control, he raised the income tax rate by another 1.5 percentage points, the cigarette tax by 50 cents a pack, and the gas tax by five cents a gallon. Dean is proud of the fact that he balanced the budget, but he never mentions the money that was required to do it. Between 1997 and 2002, the state's budget increased by an astounding 52 percent. An affluent state with a low birth-rate, Vermont had always had one of the lowest budgets in the country. After Dean left office, Vermont's state tax income per capita rate was the second highest in the nation. With a budget that increased as fast as Governor Gray Davis's in California, how is it that Howard Dean views himself as a fiscal conservative? Well, it seems to boil down to his point of view. Dean comes from the state whose only member of the House of Representatives also happens to be the only member of Congress who is a self-proclaimed Socialist, Bernie Sanders. Dean himself admitted this to a Sierra Club member several weeks ago: "In Vermont, you know, politics is much farther to the left. A Vermont centrist is an American liberal right now." Walk around Columbia's campus and you'll see a lot of "Dean for America" buttons and signs. Many of these students couldn't care less about tax increases or the American economy as a whole. This is fine, as many people are more worried about the war in Iraq or the protection of civil liberties than economics. However, those students who protest Bush's economic policies should have a more complete understanding of Dean's economic policies. They should realize that the words "conservative" and "liberal" are relative words in today's world. Howard Dean is merely fiscally conservative in a relative sense. During Dean's 12 years as governor, Vermont's budget grew from $662 million to $1.8 billion. The majority of Vermont may call that fiscal conservatism, but it doesn't seem too likely that the rest of the country will buy that story. It would be great to have a fiscal conservative in the White House because Bush is the most fiscally irresponsible President in history. Doctor Dean has a record as a fiscal conservative.