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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (12716)	4/6/2004 11:34:19 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 81568

Kerry attacks Bush's spending John Kerry accuses President Bush of ''reckless'' spending, which he says is forcing states to raise taxes and cut services. BY LESLEY CLARK miami.com lclark@herald.com WASHINGTON - John Kerry sought Monday to shed the dreaded tax-and-spend liberal label, charging that it's President Bush who is running up the federal deficit and increasing the tax burden on working families. The accusations came in a meeting with regional reporters from key states, kicking off a week that Kerry hopes will refocus his campaign and direct attention to job losses and the economy -- hot-button issues that Kerry campaign strategists believe can be used to hurt the president and blunt a flurry of Bush campaign ads aimed at portraying the Massachusetts senator as a big spender and eager taxer. ''The tax burden on the average American under George Bush has gone up, while the tax burden on the people at the high-end income scale has gone down,'' Kerry said, as his campaign released a report that claims the Bush administration has proposed more than $6 trillion in new initiatives over the next 10 years, including Bush's tax cuts. The new aggressiveness comes after several weeks in which Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has been essentially sidelined -- vacationing and recuperating from minor shoulder surgery -- and focused on raising money. The Bush campaign has used the relative lull to roll out a new series of ads, including one that mockingly suggests Kerry supported a 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax. Kerry attributed new polls suggesting his one-time lead is softening in some areas to his lack of visibility -- and what he called the ''equivalent of nuclear attacks'' that the well-funded Bush campaign has unleashed in an effort to define the Democrat before he can present himself to voters. ''This administration is very busy creating a phantom campaign,'' Kerry said. ``They want to run against a straw man that they set up.'' Bush campaign aides noted that Kerry had voted for some of the Bush spending proposals he attacked and repeated accusations that Kerry shifts his stance. ''When a 19-year tax-and-spend liberal puts on fiscally conservative clothing, it's called a costume,'' said Bush-Cheney spokesman Reed Dickens. ``The president has held nondefense [budget increases] under 1 percent. After 19 years of tax hikes and big spending, Senator Kerry once again wants to change his position.'' Kerry reemphasized Monday that he plans to fight Bush for a number of key battleground states, including Florida. His campaign aides provided state-by-state comparisons of an economic plan he plans to detail Wednesday in Washington, promising that he will create 10 million new jobs. Today, he travels to Ohio, an up-for-grabs state that has lost thousands of jobs since Bush took office. Bush, Kerry charged, has ''mortgaged the fiscal health of the country and stuck taxpayers with the bill,'' suggesting that states -- including Florida -- have been forced to cut services and increase local taxes to pay for Bush's tax breaks. The charges come days after Bush's campaign got a boost: a report that companies last month added 308,000 workers to their payrolls, the strongest increase in the past four years. But Kerry said the report won't alter his message. He noted that Bush promised to create five million jobs, but that nearly two million have been lost, including 63,000 in Florida. ''By his own numbers, George Bush is in debit to the country seven million jobs,'' Kerry said. Bush was in Charlotte, N.C., Monday, to propose doubling the number of Americans who receive job-training help from the federal government. Kerry called the proposal ironic, suggesting ``there aren't a lot of great jobs to be training for right now.''