Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Dean MTP transcript

Here.
He sounds pretty good to me, but then I'm not a Kewl Kid.

don’t believe them. This administration has not been candid about the impacts of this tax cut. A few months ago they had the deficit coming in at $290 billion. It’s at $400 billion. The administration simply has not been forthcoming and factual about the impact of their tax cuts. Setting aside whatever the real numbers might be, the accurate numbers, let’s look at what the tax cuts have done. Property taxes are going up in places in New Hampshire because the president has cut services, because he has not given the right amount of money to the states for special education, for No Child Left Behind, for all these unfunded mandates that he’s passed. The real effect of the Bush tax cuts has actually been to raise taxes on most middle-class people and to cut their services. Their public schools are suffering. Health care is suffering for middle-class kids. And that’s because of these tax cuts. These tax cuts are incredibly bad for the economy. I believe their purpose is essentially to defund the federal government so that Medicare and Social Security, the icons of the New Deal, will be undone. Karl Rove and others have talked about going back to the McKinley era before there was any kind of social safety net in this country. Really that’s what the campaign’s about. It’s to undo what I consider radical Republicanism.
Russert: But in the middle of an economic downturn, Howard Dean wants to raise taxes on the average of $1,200 per family.
Dean: So says the Republican Treasury Department which I think has very little credibility in this matter. Let’s look at the record.
Russert: But you would raise taxes?
Dean: I would go back to the Clinton era of taxes because I think most Americans would gladly pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president if they could only have the same economy that they had when Bill Clinton was president.

Have at it...