Our government has a surplus, and our nation has a choice - one of the clearest choices of this campaign. Will we use that money wisely, or will we spend it on permanently larger government?
Today, America is projected to have a $4.6 trillion surplus - extra money after the government budget grows. I see America’s $4.6 trillion surplus as an opportunity to protect and extend our present prosperity.
We will use half of the surplus to strengthen Social Security and pay down debt- national commitments that we must keep.
We will make important investments in Medicare, education, the environment and national defense.
And we will return about one fourth of the surplus to the American people, who earned it, paid it and deserve part of it back.
For me, this is a matter of principle. A surplus, after all, means a surplus of tax collection. It means Americans have been overcharged. And they should see some of that money again.
This tax reduction also serves another purpose.
It is an insurance policy against recession.
Putting more money into the hands of the earners and creators of wealth - before trouble comes - would give our current expansion a second wind.
My opponent has a plan for the surplus as well. He is proposing the largest increase in federal spending in 35 years - since the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.
Over two hundred new or expanded federal programs.
An estimated 20 to 30 thousand new Washington bureaucrats.
Four hundred and twelve new regulations on Medicare - a plan that could double the size of the current bureaucracy.
More IRS agents - because targeted tax cuts mean targeted audits.
All this could amount to over $2 trillion in bigger government over 10 years - costing about $20,000, on average, for every household. To give you an idea of the amounts involved, think of it this way: the Gore spending plan proposes three times more in new spending than Bill Clinton proposed in 1992. If Gore gets elected, the era of big government being over is over. And so too, I fear, is our prosperity.
That staggering level of spending is one major difference between my opponent and me. But it is not the largest difference. We have two very different approaches to government.
For over a year, policy by policy, reform by reform, I have been defining a different role for the federal government.
I don’t believe that government is always the enemy. It created Social Security and Medicare, built highways, won wars, helped end segregation. Yet government helps best when it empowers individuals, not when it builds bureaucracies.
When it treats people as citizens, not as wards.
Some Americans - people challenged by hardship or tragedy - need a safety net. Without it, they have nothing.
But many more Americans just need a little help, so they can achieve on their own. They need tools, not rules; options, not orders.
I have proposed a prescription drug plan for seniors - giving them not only the help they need, but a choice in the matter.
I have a plan to expand health insurance for low-income people - by helping them afford the insurance they choose to meet their needs.
I have Social Security reform that lets people own a part of their future.
My education reforms give low-income parents real options when their schools are failing - real influence they’ve never had before.
This is smarter, fairer, more effective government. A government that knows its limits, but shows its heart. We set out to reward people’s own effort, their own labor, their own choices. We treat people with respect. We trust them to know their own interests and chart their own course.
My opponent once had some sympathy for these ideas. He has claimed to invent many things, but he did help invent the Democratic Leadership Council. Senator Lieberman is also a member. This is an organization of more moderate Democrats who want to modernize Medicare and Social Security.
Shrink the federal workforce and control spending. Use market-oriented ideas to help people in education and health care.
I don’t always agree with this group, and they certainly don’t always agree with me. But they are leaders - the kind of leaders I will work with should I become president.
But Vice President Gore has cast his lot with the old Democratic party.
His promises throw the budget out of balance. He offers a big federal spending program to nearly every voting bloc. He expands entitlements, without reforms to sustain them.
And when others - Republican or Democrat - propose needed reforms in Social Security, Medicare or education, he opposes and then vigorously attacks them.
Just when progress on important issues seems within reach, my opponent has left the vital center of American politics.
For a time, it seemed that we had all moved on. The Vice President was seated right behind Bill Clinton at the State of the Union when the President declared: “The era of big government is over.”
Apparently, the message never took. My opponent once seemed interested in “reinventing government”; now he seems interested only in expanding it. For him, big government has never really been dead; it has simply been biding its time, waiting for its next chance. The Vice President would like that chance to come next January.
But we have come too far, and learned too much, to go back to the old ways of tax and spend.
Alan Greenspan recently reminded us that when the government gets bigger, it is very, very hard to bring back down to size. And now spending usually costs more in the future than we ever expected.
This is what would happen under my opponent’s plan. In four short years, he would leave obligations that would haunt our children for generations to come.
Social Security is the clearest example. The Vice President has a plan. He wants to issue bonds - government IOUs - to fill the social security trust fund. We’ll just call those “Gore bonds.”
There is just one problem: Eventually, IOUs come due. Down the road - long after Al Gore has left public office - our children and grandchildren will have to pay these Gore bonds. That will mean a massive increase in taxes, or a massive reduction in Social Security benefits.
In fact, while I have ruled out new Social Security taxes, my opponent has not. There are only 40 days left, and I challenge him to make his intentions clear.
This is the economic case against my opponent’s plan - the hard numbers. But there is another case as well.
Down his path, many of us will feel the expansion of government in our lives - working through a maze of bureaucracy to get health care, or tax relief, or help with education. We’ll find ourselves working harder for the government - appeasing it, pleasing it, trying to keep it at bay. More forms to fill out, more regulations to meet, more lines to stand in.
In all my opponent’s plans, there is always some string attached, always some new set of rules to meet.
He offers marriage penalty relief - but only if you don’t take the mortgage interest deduction. Child care - but not with grandparents or other relatives. A tax break on transportation costs - but only if you drive something called a hybrid electric gasoline engine vehicle.
With him, we can get a tax cut only if we behave as he wants us to, because we can’t be trusted to spend our own money. The people who make the money, according to Al Gore, aren’t as qualified as the people in Washington who take the money.
Low-income parents, my opponent seems to believe, should not be free to choose where their children go to school, because somehow an entrenched education establishment cares more about their children than they do.
Al Gore says we can’t direct any of our Social Security taxes into personal savings accounts, because Washington, by definition, is smarter than the rest of us.
Only some politically appointed panel can make health decisions, because, well, Mr. Gore is afraid the rest of us would just mess it up.
The contrast between our two economic plans could not be clearer.
I see our record surplus as an opportunity to save Social Security, provide families with tax relief, improve public education and extend our prosperity. My opponent sees it as the foundation for the permanent expansion of government, and his plan to spend it all would threaten our current prosperity.
I want tax reductions that are broad and fair. My opponent views tax cuts as a reward for good behavior, as he defines it.
I believe government should help people live their lives, not run their lives. My opponent believes in choices - but he makes most of them for you.
In this election, I am trying to earn the trust of Americans by trusting them in return. I want this country to have a president you can believe in - but also a president who believes in the people.
Thank you.