Our most urgent task is to throw off the dead ideas of the Incumbent Party. For starters, I would immediately expend trade so that Eastern Europe could become an engine of increased economic activity. I would examine Senator Moynihan’s proposal to cut payroll taxes. I would initiate a Roosevelt-style Civilian Conservation Corps to employ and train the lost generation of young men and women who have been abandoned by the president and his allies in Congress.
The key to American economic viability is a competitive manufacturing base. To stimulate investment I would propose a long-term capitalgains tax cut. This would be targeted only to securities with a differential based on a longer holding period and paid for dollar for dollar with the creation of a higher income-tax bracket. The purpose is to encourage “patient” capital by taxing investments at progressively lower rates the longer they are hold. This will help companies trying to survive and compote without the country incurring further debt or shifting the tax burden to the middle class.
TOM HARKIN One of my first acts as president will be to scrap supply-side, trickle-down economics and implement a New Growth Agenda based on resource-based economics. I have outlined a five-point plan that would stop subsidizing the defense of Europe and Japan and start investing in America: in rebuilding our infrastructure, creating now and efficient energy systems, improving our schools and health care, and training our work force.
My three-part “Put America First-initiative: Part One: Cut $50 billion from the federal budget. I would cut the federal budget three ways. (1) Reduce unnecessary administrative overhead. SAVINGS: $25 billion. (2) Revise military strategy and require allies to pay their fair share. SAVINGS: $10 billion. (3) Reorder priorities, eliminating lowest-priority items as we did in Virginia. SAVINGS: $15 billion. Part Two: Cut federal taxes by $35 billion for middle-class families. Part Three: Allocate $15 billion in a new “Reduce Bureaucracy Grants” initiative to assist localities that try now ways to provide better services and tackle difficult social problems.
In a Clinton administration, we are going to have a national strategy to compote in the world and put Americans back to work. We need to give people incentives to make a long-term investment in America and reward people who produce goods and services, not those who speculate with other people’s money. We’ve got to invest more money in emerging technologies to help keep high-paying jobs here at home. We’ve got to convert from a defense to a domestic economy. For 12 years the Republicans have raised taxes on the middle class. I believe it’s time to give the middle class tax relief.
I built a business in the decade of the 1970s. I understand the value of investment, the destructiveness of high interest rates, the power of a well-educated work force, and the danger of overregulation. In order to compete, to grow, to prosper, we must invest. Invest in our businesses. Invest in our people. Invest in our country. We must fund now technologies and develop policies to help American entrepreneurs bring those innovations to market. We must rebuild our infrastructure, cut the budget deficit and boost the savings rate.
