Gore kicks off 'prosperity tour' in New York

June 13, 2000
Web posted at: 6:02 PM EDT (2202 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Vice President Al Gore kicked off his Democratic presidential campaign's much-anticipated "prosperity and progress tour" on Tuesday by putting to use a popular Republican refrain from past presidential elections.

Vice President Al Gore gave his "Progress and Prosperity" address at the New York Historical Society, in New York, New York, Tuesday.

"Two decades ago, in the days before his election, Ronald Reagan asked a justly famous question that deserves to be asked again today," Gore said during an appearance Tuesday at the New York Historical Society.

"Are you better off than you were four years ago? Let me go even further: Are you better off than you were eight years ago?" Gore asked.

With former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin at his side, the vice president embarked on a two-week effort to link the nation's unprecedented economic prosperity to the Clinton Administration's domestic policies.

"To those who said our economic plan would fail, that it would destroy jobs and choke off recovery, I say: Look around you.

"Together as a nation, we turned the biggest deficits in our history into the biggest surpluses," he said. "We set our hands to a time of recession and doubt and built it into a time of pride and plenty."

Gore's coast-to-coast trek will roll through key presidential battleground states such as Kentucky, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin -- states where the Democratic National Committee is already running "issue ads" designed to tout the vice president's proposals on issues such as Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans began chipping away at the prosperity tour before Gore uttered his first words. On Monday, New York's GOP governor, George Pataki, said Congress and the nation's governors share credit for prosperous times and accused Gore of trying to claim he "invented prosperity."

Texas Gov. George W. Bush's campaign also plans to counter Gore's efforts by running commercials touting Bush's Social Security plan in the same 15 states where the DNC ads are running. The Bush plan would let workers place some of their Social Security payroll taxes in government-approved private investment plans.

During his address on Tuesday, Gore referred to Bush just once, and then only as "the opposition." However, he started the event with proposals for tax-free individual savings and investment accounts designed to counter his rival's privatization plan. While holding back on some details, the vice president said that his "Social Security Plus" differed from Bush's proposals because it would be funded entirely from the federal budget surplus and would not subject the federal retirement program to fluctuations of the stock market.

"This is Social Security plus, it is not Social Security minus," the vice president. "With Social Security as the unshakable foundation, people should be able to invest and save more for their retirement without gambling away their Social Security."

The Gore campaign did not release cost figures for the proposed voluntary program, but said the vice president would release details during the course of the tour.

President Clinton has similarly called for the creation of "USA Accounts" from the federal surplus, which would provide federal matches for a portion of what a person saved.

Gore on Tuesday also previewed plans for a Medicare "lock box" that would render off-limits the portion of payroll taxes that fund the sprawling, federally administered seniors' health care program, forbidding those funds from being used for tax cuts or congressionally mandated spending.

"If we do that, then Congress can never try to raid Medicare or take it away. We will keep Medicare strong for decades to come. And we will update Medicare to provide a prescription drug benefit for all our seniors," Gore said.

The vice president also said that he would set aside unspecified portions of the surplus to create separate trust funds to be used only for education, health care and the environment.

Gore is scheduled to deliver a health care speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, followed by an appearance in Cincinnati on Thursday to promote his proposals for targeted tax cuts -- in contrast to Bush's suggested five-year, $483 billion across-the-board tax cut plan.

"I won't spend money that we don't yet have on a huge tax cut our economy can't afford, in ways that could end our prosperity and progress," Gore said Tuesday.

Correspondent Chris Black and Reuters contributed to this report.

MORE STORIES:

Tuesday, June 13, 2000

• Bitter races for Virginia House seats highlights day of elections
  
• Wednesday hearing to examine loss of nuclear secrets at Los Alamos lab
  
• Video: Political coverage, campaign ads form dynamic duo
  
• Stakes are high in California congressional race
  
• Video: The ups and downs of unscientific election forecasting
  
• Gore kicks off 'prosperity tour' in New York
  
• Capitol Hill debates DNA testing in capital crimes
  
• Clinton urges Congress to pass patients' bill of rights after Supreme Court ruling
  
• Circus elephants are main attraction at congressional inquiry
  
• Drug coverage must be added to Medicare while the money's there, Clinton says
  
• A sometime step in the VP dance: Saying 'no' before you're asked
  
• Ex-congressman sentenced to three months in halfway house for criminal contempt
  
• Mayor Giuliani still won't say how he will treat cancer
  
• Report: Danforth pulls name from list of potential Bush running mates
  
• Congressional seats draw heavy GOP competition in two states
  
• White House claims rural elderly will suffer under GOP drug plan
  
• Clinton and Dole attend fund-raiser for Sen. Dodd
  
• First lady, House whip share foster care award
  

ARCHIVES