President will face strong pressure for increase to pay for economic agenda By Tom Raum, Associated Press

NEW YORK — At their national convention, Republicans were long on rhetoric and short on specifics on how to pay for an economic agenda in a second Bush administration.

One reason is that President Bush could end up having to back a tax increase, just as his father did.

But nobody wanted to spoil the Madison Square Garden party by mentioning such unpleasantries. After all, Republicans are insisting that Democrat John Kerry is the candidate who will increase taxes. …

“Taxes are going up next year no matter who wins the presidency in November,” concluded conservative economist Bruce Bartlett, who advised both Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush.

“It’s out of the hands of politicians,” Bartlett said.

The annual $400 billion deficit leaves little room to maneuver. The shortfall was exacerbated by two earlier tax cuts that Bush pushed through as well as rising costs for Iraq, Afghanistan, homeland security and a major expansion Medicare.

Furthermore, the Federal Reserve has embarked on a course of raising interest rates from their recent 40-year lows. Higher interest rates combined with a continued weak dollar will put more pressure on the government’s balance sheet. …

At the convention, Bush was silent on how to pay for any of his second-term proposals.

“A presidential election is a contest for the future,” Bush told the party faithful. But on the economic front, most convention speakers could not help but look back to what Vice President Dick Cheney celebrated as “the greatest tax reduction in a generation.”

Republicans like to suggest that Bush is following in the path of Reagan, who pushed through Congress the then-biggest tax cut in U.S. history in 1981.

What they usually neglect to mention is that the following year, Reagan reluctantly signed one of the biggest tax increases in history.

Flat wages, spotty job market greet workers for Labor Day by LEIGH STROPE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A spotty job market and stagnant paychecks cloud this Labor Day holiday for many workers, highlighting the importance of pocketbook issues in the presidential election.

“Working harder and enjoying it less,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics, summing up the state of working America. …

Nearly two-thirds of 1,050 full-time workers in a Labor Day survey by Harris Interactive and Kronos Inc. said they have increased job responsibilities in the past six months. One-third said they were working longer hours and 62 percent claimed they had not received a pay raise.

In a poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs, a third of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the amount of stress at work. Other leading complaints included advancement opportunities and health and retirement benefits.

ABQjournal: Election 2004: A Look at Nuclear Issues By John Fleck, Journal Staff Writer

John Kerry and George W. Bush offer voters a clear choice on what has become the central national debate about the future direction of the U.S. nuclear arsenalâ — the question of whether to pursue a new nuclear bomb designed to destroy underground enemy bunkers. …

Bush’s administration is pushing for the design of a new nuclear bunker-busting bomb. …

“There is a clear military utility to this weapon,” Bush’s top nuclear weapons program manager, Linton Brooks, told a Senate committee in March.

Kerry opposes it.

“This is a weapon we don’t need,” Kerry countered in a June 1 campaign speech in Florida, “and it undermines our credibility in persuading other nations. What kind of a message does it send when we’re asking other countries not to develop nuclear weapons, but developing new ones ourselves?”

ABQjournal: Campaign Issues 2004: Candidates Differ on Energy Production, Efficiency By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer

Listen to President George Bush and Sen. John Kerry talk about energy issues and you might wonder what the difference is between the two candidates.

Both presidential candidates are pledging to tackle America’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce gasoline prices and expand domestic oil and natural gas production without harming the environment. …

But the candidates do part ways.

Bush is putting a heavier emphasis on increased domestic production, and a cornerstone of his plan to get more oil flowing is opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other federal land in the West to drilling. …

Kerry has been a vocal opponent of ANWR development in Alaska and once threatened a Senate filibuster on the issue.

Kerry’s energy plan focuses on dramatic improvements in fuel efficiency, clean fuels and renewable energy— including ambitious goals of 20 percent of fuels from clean sources and 20 percent of energy from renewables like wind and solar by 2020— with the help of billions of federal dollars.

“There is no way possible for our nation to drill its way out of this predicament,” Kerry said May 25 in Portland, Ore. “We have to invent our way out of this predicament.”

Bush proposes more modest investments and does not support large increases in fuel-efficiency standards. He has not set a renewable energy production target. And he blames Congress for stalling progress on his initiatives by not passing an energy bill. [mjh: Republicans control Congress] …

Kerry’s energy plan calls for a major reduction in the amount of gasoline used in America— both by improving vehicle fuel efficiency and by dramatically increasing the use of alternative fuels. …

Bush also wants to increase gasoline supplies by expanding oil refinery capacity with the help of changes in Clean Air Act regulations, now tied up in court challenges, that would allow refineries to upgrade without being forced to install new pollution controls but also without increasing emissions.