President Bush called on Congress Thursday to at least make permanent the tax cuts set to expire next year after fellow Republicans warned the rest of his tax plan may have to wait until after the election.
Bush swung into full campaign mode in a state that Democrats say has lost thousands of jobs under his watch --Kentucky. A planned trip to another such state, North Carolina, was canceled because of a snow storm.
Without mentioning Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry by name, Bush derided his political rivals as out of touch with working Americans for opposing the extension of his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts at a cost of around $1 trillion over the next decade.
“That’s code word for ’I’m going to raise your taxes,”’ Bush told workers at an expanding pipe-making company.
“We don’t need to be raising taxes right now as the economy is beginning to recover. We’ve got plenty of money in Washington D.C.,” the Republican president said, making no mention of this year’s projected half-trillion-dollar budget deficit.
After chatting with workers, Bush raised $1.2 million for his re-election campaign at a $2,000 a plate Louisville luncheon. It was his sixth visit to Kentucky, a state he won in the 2000 election.
After months on the defensive over Iraq, job growth and his military record, Bush has plunged wholeheartedly this week into the campaign fray, challenging Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, and other Democrats on the economy and national security.
Bush signaled that his top priority was extending the child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples and the 10 percent tax bracket, all which expire in 2005. That would be significantly less than his election-year pledge to make all of his tax cuts permanent.
“I would like Congress to make all tax cuts permanent,” Bush said.
“But the very minimum, they need to listen to the stories up here on the stage and make those set to expire in 2005 permanent for the sake of our economy, for the sake of American families, for the sake of small business owners and for the sake of job creation,” he said.
Bush’s comments came as Republican lawmakers warned the White House that a large package — extending all of the tax cuts — stands little chance of passage in the Senate.
The White House denied any change in strategy. “Those that expire first will be voted on first, and that’s what the president is referring to,” said White House communications director Dan Bartlett.
Unemployment has emerged as major political problem for Bush, exacerbated by a series of gaffes about the pace of job growth and the possible long-term economic benefits of moving jobs overseas.
Kerry and other Democrats have seized on the issue, accusing Bush of indifference.
To counter critics, Bush turned to a familiar format, a ”Conversation on the Economy” that allows him to deliver his upbeat economic message free of dissent.
“Look what we’ve overcome,” Bush declared at ISCO Industries, the Louisville pipe-maker headed by Jimmy Kirchdorfer, a Bush campaign donor. “There’s a sense of optimism.”
Democrats insist Bush’s upbeat forecast is out of sync with workplace reality.
The unemployment rate in Louisville is up 1.2 percent since Bush took office, with the city’s work force contracting by 2,500 jobs. Nationwide, nearly 2.8 million factory jobs have been lost since January 2001.
