Bob Dole: A Race To The Top Essay -- essays research papers

Bob Dole: A Race to the Top People understand they can't get all these tax cuts, protect their favorite programs, and balance the budget," says Susan Tanaka speaking on the promises made by presidential candidate Bob Dole to the American public (Gibbs 1996). Bob Dole proposed his tax cut package on Aug. 5, 1996 hoping to entice the public into voting for him in the 1996 presidential elections. Dole focuses his proposal towards social conservatives and supply siders believing he will give them their link to growth-oriented tax cuts which will amount to 551 billion dollars over the next six years (Rubin 1996). So how does Bob Dole plan to make all these things happen without remaining in office for at least 12 years? He does not, it is merely an impossible act in a desperate attempt to get himself elected. As a tradition, the "Grand old Party" has always benefited the rich more than the middle and working class people of America. Bob Dole promises a plan which will avoid business tax cuts and combine a marginal rate cut with a $500 per child tax credit, targeted towards low and middle income tax payers. The result, a plan that while still benefiting the rich more than the middle class, more evenly distributes between all income groups (Duffy 1996). Under Dole's tax cut plan, a family of four with an annual income of 31,000 would see their tax bill drop from $2,000 to $800, a difference of $1,200. "The way the tax cut was packaged shows that they were still sensitive to the old anti-Reagan argument that tax cuts just benefit the rich and they tried to show that their plan would benefit everybody," remarked Rick Grafmeyer, a tax partner at Earnest & Young, a national accounting firm (Barnes, 1996, 29). While Dole flaunts the benefits of his tax-cut proposal, he fails to mention what will suffer in order to activate his tax cuts. First of all, Dole made no mention of how his tax-cut proposal will pay for the $551 billion reduction in taxes. Secondly, Dole does not say that he needs to cut spending in "small" areas such as Medicare, student loans, defense spending and social security. (Gibbs, 1996) Even if Dole plans to leave these things out of the cut, that still leaves 30% of the budget to absorb the cost of the tax cut. Professor Alan Aurbach, of the Universit... ...ncing his tax-cut package and using his other strengths such as his experience in Washington. The worst case scenario would be that he looses the support of his supply-siders, which would not make much difference because he has not gotten that much more than grief from them anyway. In short, it is a tragedy that Dole has sold his soul to win the election, and now he won't end up with either. Dole likes to call himself an agent of change and says that President Cinton is only a defender of the status quo. This seems to upset the traditional views of both parties and reverses the roles. President Clinton proposes only minor tax cuts and specifies payment through minor spending cuts and other revenues while still protecting Medicare, social security, and other related issues. Between President Clinton's election in 1992 and the present, the national deficit has fallen 60% from 290 billion dollars to around 117 billion dollars (Barnes 1996). The strongest case supported the candidate who best represents the conservative American and also holds true to the Democratic party's tradition, United States President and fellow American, William Jefferson Clinton.