A capacity crowd in Gaston Hall watched John Kerry reveal his proposal to reduce the Federal Government’s budget deficit last Wednesday. While activists, souvenir vendors, press trucks, and a long line of last minute ticket seekers idled in the sun outside Kerry forcefully attacked President Bush’s handling of the economy as misguided and harmful.
The maroon backdrop behind the Democratic candidate summed up the theme of the speech: “Fiscal Responsibility = A Stronger America.” In one of his first major speeches on fiscal responsibility, Kerry outlined his proposal to return to the surpluses of the late 1990s while lowering the tax burden of the middle class.
“Under my plan, 99 percent of American businesses and 98 percent of Americans will get a tax cut,” he said. He plans to roll back the Bush tax cut on Americans making more than $200,000. This money , he said, will be used to pay for the middle class cuts as well as health care and education spending. “[Bush] made a clear choice: to pass the bucks to the privileged while passing the buck to our children,” Kerry said, drawing a round of applause from the largely supportive crowd.
College Republicans staged a rally outside the speech and put up fliers highlighting liberal votes and contradictions in Kerry’s senate career. “Now that he’s launched a national campaign he has adopted a more moderate policy to mollify an ignorant public,” said College Republicans’ Chairman Jady Hsin (CAS ‘07).
The Massachusetts senator also pledged to return to the “pay-as-you-go” system that requires a specific source of financing for every new budget proposal. “From missions to Mars to tax cuts for the wealthy to a Medicare bill that benefits drug companies and burdens seniors, the Bush Administration has failed to pay for what it has proposed,” Kerry said.
The presumptive Democratic nominee said that even some of his own proposals would fall victim to the economic crunch, including his universal pre-school and expanded national service programs. “With the deficit worsening each and every day of the Bush Administration, we may have to slow both initiatives down or phase them in over a longer period. I don’t like that. But those are the hard calls a president has to make,” Kerry said.
Kerry highlighted several relatively minor ways he would cut government spending and reduce the deficit, including cutting corporate farm subsidies and reducing the number of government contractors.
Mitch Fox (MSB, ‘05) had already made up his mind to vote for anyone but Bush, but he was impressed with Kerry’s charm. “His charisma is certainly different than Clinton: dignified but still connected personally. He handled the outburst pretty well,” Fox said, referring to a group of female students who yelled, “Talk about global AIDS!” from the balcony during the speech.
Kerry fed speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket by mentioning the independently minded Arizona Republican several times as he proposed greater government efficiency. “John McCain and I have introduced legislation to end corporate welfare as we know it. In a Kerry Administration, we will fight for that bill; we will take our case to the public if we have to – and we will pass it,” Kerry said.
