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More headlines: Al Gore on Budget & Economy

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You ain’t seen nothing yet

We’ve made some progress during the last eight years. We have seen the strongest economy in the history of the United States, lower crime rates for eight years in a row, highest private home ownership ever. But I’ll make you one promise here: You ain’t seen nothing yet. And I will keep that promise.
Source: St. Louis debate Oct 17, 2000

Economic plan is blueprint for American prosperity

The Gore campaign announced today a detailed economic blueprint for the next decade. “The Gore-Lieberman economic plan has one guiding purpose, to help the middle class families who have always been America’s purpose and pride, the people who pay the taxes, bear the burdens and live the American dream. My plan wasn’t built on the cross-your-fingers economics that says we can give more to the people who already have the most and then just hope the benefits trickle down to the middle class.”
Source: Katherine Q. Seelye, NY Times on 2000 election Sep 6, 2000

Voters in key states do not credit Gore for prosperity

Without the famous battle cry “It’s the economy, stupid,” Vice President Gore may lack a crucial weapon he is counting on to boost his presidential bid this fall. Interviews with swing voters in the large, battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome of the presidential race in November revealed that Gore receives little, if any, of the credit for the nation’s unprecedented prosperity. Over the past eight years, the economies of these battleground states--like states throughout the country--have improved dramatically, with unemployment rates falling from more than 7 percent to between 3 percent and 4 percent and millions of new jobs created. What was once called the Rust Belt is now an engine of high-tech growth. That kind of economic climate normally benefits the party in power, and Gore’s recent “Prosperity and Progress” tour was aimed at encouraging voters to give the Clinton-Gore administration much of the credit.
Source: David S. Broder, Dan Balz in Washington Post on 2000 electio Jul 23, 2000

Gore attack on Texas economy strikes nerve in Bush campaign

Never has the Bush campaign mounted as furious a counteroffensive as it did in response to the vice president’s latest salvo: that the Texas governor had mismanaged his state’s finances, creating serious cost overruns. The Gore campaign seemed to hit a nerve, that suggested the emergence of a line of attack that might have some staying power. Gore was challenging Bush on an issue -- the ability to manage the economy and sustain prosperity - on which Republicans have often maintained an advantage over Democrats in voters’ minds. Additionally, Gore was doing it in the context of the ever-expanding surplus projections that have become one of the brightest legacies of the Clinton administration. Gore and his aides were bubbling with confidence today, saying that the questions they had raised about the Texas budget embodied and brought into vivid relief the larger concerns they had been trying to make about Bush’s experience and what they see as his nonchalant approach to governing.
Source: Frank Bruni & Eric Schmitt, NY Times on 2000 election Jul 22, 2000

Bush avoids Texas budget woes

Gore said via a Press Release: The Houston Chronicle reported on a potential budget shortfall in Texas up to $750 million. Since that day, there has been a flood of reports from Texas about uncertainties in the state budget and deficiencies in state services that have taken a backseat to Bush’s $1.7 billion tax cut. During that time, Bush continued his photo-op tour, providing only one candid answer to questions about the Texas budget troubles: “I hope I’m not here to have to deal with it.”
Source: Press Release, “Bush Ducks Texas Budget Shortage” Jul 21, 2000

Economic policy based on discipline, prudent investments

I am proposing an economic policy that’s tried & tested, and built on our values. Fiscal discipline as the foundation and a new generation of investments to empower our people and unleash their potential. No runaway spending, no paybacks for the powerful interests and no budget-busting tax proposals. Bush gave some nice-sounding speeches this week, but we can’t afford to go back to the days of deficits, debt and economic decline. We can’t simply ignore the hard-won lessons of the past eight years.
Source: Press Release “Investments for the People” Jul 15, 2000

Broad solutions to national debt & maintaining prosperity

In the past two days, Gore and Bush have both put down markers on the themes they believe can carry them to the White House. Gore will attempt to capitalize on the public’s contentment over the longest expansion in US history, now in its 112th month.

Gore hopes to strike back by enlarging his ongoing debate with Bush from specific issues to the broader assertion that he is far better equipped than Bush to preserve and extend the unprecedented prosperity Americans now enjoy. [Opening that theme], this week Gore previewed his upcoming “peace and prosperity” tour with a proposal to lock up Medicare surpluses, that would help extend the solvency of Medicare, hasten the elimination of the national debt, and ensure that prosperity continues.

“We’ve had a major national debate about what to do concerning the biggest deficits in our history,” Gore said. “We now have to have a national debate about what to do with the biggest surpluses in our history.”

Source: Dan Balz, Washington Post, p. A1 on 2000 election Jun 9, 2000

No more “casino economics”; no reckless giveaways

We face a basic choice. Will we use our prosperity to lift up our working families and meet our responsibilities to our parents and to our children and make sure that no one is left behind? Or will we go back to where we were eight years ago? Will we roll the dice in the same casino economics that devastated our economy and hurt working families? Does anyone think we should go back to the union-busting, job-destroying, budget-busting policies of the Bush-Quayle years. I don’t think so.

I believe America has to put its fundamental responsibilities first. We have to pay down our debt, we have to save Social Security, we have to lift up working families. George W. Bush believes instead that our top priority should be a reckless $2 trillion tax giveaway lavishing more on those who already have the most. Governor Bush does not set aside a single penny for Medicare. And I believe his approach to Social Security is even more irresponsible.

Source: Speech to AFL-CIO convention; Atlantic City NJ May 3, 2000

Deficit Hawk for balancing 1993 budget, but not ideological

Gore’s executive style as Vice President carried all the earmarks of his legislative career-keen intellect, fierce competitiveness, self-righteousness, and caution punctuated by bursts of boldness. Gore was “a new Age pragmatist,” as one aide put it, with no consistent ideological coloring, capable of landing on Clinton’s left or right depending on the issue. In the debate over the early economic program, he sided with the “deficit hawks” who favored deep reductions in red ink to win the confidence of the bond market. At the same time he pushed unsuccessfully to raise revenue with a controversial, broad-based energy tax favored by the environmental movement. In 1995 Gore pushed Clinton to offer a balanced budget of his own to compete with the plan presented by Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans. When other aides urged Clinton to close a deal with the GOP, Gore insisted that the administration hold out to protect Medicaid, Medicare, and other programs from severe cuts.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.269 Mar 3, 2000

Policy making should include understanding markets

Q: Is the shift in power from Washington to Wall Street a healthy development?
A:It’s a natural development in a country that’s free. It’s incumbent upon national policy makers who try to make the right decisions to understand the interaction of public policy & what happens in the markets. [A Clinton budgetary premise was to] keep interest rates down & draw investment capital from all around the world into our markets and give us the chance to have low inflation and low unemployment at the same time.
Source: Democratic Debate in Durham, NH Jan 5, 2000

Pledges to reduce national debt every year

If I’m elected, I have pledged to reduce the national debt every year. I haven’t pledged any specific targets on how much the reduction should be. But if we go back into deficit spending, we put our monetary policy at risk and put new political pressure on our ability to invest in R&D and education.
Source: Interview in Business Week, p. 42-43 Dec 20, 1999

Reinventing Government cuts waste and inefficiency.

As a Congressman and Senator, Gore supported spending cuts and strong measures to reduce the deficit. And today’s balanced budget would not have been possible without Al Gore’s aggressive effort to cut government waste and inefficiency through the Reinventing Government initiative, eliminating scores of needless government programs, outdated regulations, and billions of dollars in wasteful spending.
Source: www.AlGore2000.com/issues/econ.html 5/14/99 May 14, 1999

Fiscal discipline; invest in people; open markets.

The Clinton-Gore Economic Strategy:
Source: www.AlGore2000.com/issues/econ.html 5/14/99 May 14, 1999

5-point plan for economic growth

His five-point plan for economic growth in the 21st Century
  1. Maintain fiscal discipline
  2. Use good economic times to tackle tough, long-term economic problems [like] Social Security and Medicare
  3. Continue cutting regulations and reforming and reinventing government
  4. Invest more in education for the Information Age, as well as investing aggressively in research and development and ensuring the protection of our environment
  5. America must maintain its role as the world’s leader.
Source: www.AlGore2000.com/issues/econ.html 5/14/99 May 14, 1999

Economic strategy: pay off debt; invest in future

    Let me share with you the basic economic strategy I believe America must follow.
  1. I will put us on the road to completely eliminating the national debt by the year 2013.
  2. We must save Social Security and Medicare while we have the chance to do it. My plan devotes all the interest savings from debt reduction to shore up Social Security - extending its solvency until at least 2050.
  3. We have to make smart investments in our future. That means innovative investments in education.
  4. I have proposed targeted, affordable tax cuts that can help working families, can keep our prosperity growing, and can create new jobs all across our economy.
  5. We need to be aggressive about opening new markets to American products. I support, and I have fought for, free and fair trade - and I will continue to do so as President.
  6. We have to continue to reform and reinvent government, to make it smaller and more cost-effective.
Source: Speech to the Association for a Better New York Apr 25, 2000

Other candidates on Budget & Economy: Al Gore on other issues:
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Page last updated: Feb 21, 2022