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Bob Dole greeted the Republican Plarfotm Committee today via satellite and talked economics. Kwame Holman reports.
KWAME HOLMAN: Bob Dole won't arrive in San Diego for the Republican National Convention until Sunday, but he made an appearance there today by satellite.
SEN. BOB DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: Thank you.
KWAME HOLMAN: One day after releasing the details of his new economic plan, Dole received an enthusiastic welcome from the party's Platform Committee and an introduction by House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: We are in day two of a historic moment for the American nation.
Are we going to go to a bigger government, higher tax, more bureaucracy, liberal version of the future as Bill Clinton wants, or are we was a people some 90 days from now as we talk this through on November 5th, are we going to decide on a smaller government, less bureaucracy, lower taxes, and more economic growth, and I think it says something that when you listen to every one of the economists Bob Dole's worked with, people who won the Nobel Prize, people who have been national figures, people like George Shultz, who's been secretary of state, secretary of the treasury, secretary of labor, professor in Chicago, who knows what he's talking about, and they tell you this is a serious plan, well thought out, and a huge contrast with whatever the daily line of the Clinton White House is, and so I am very excited.
And so for me, it is a great personal honor to be able to present to all of you a man I've come to know as a personal friend, a man who stood shoulder to shoulder with all of us, the leader of the Republican Party and the next President of the United States, Bob Dole.
SEN. BOB DOLE: Thank you very much. (applause) I'm very proud of our party, and I'm obviously proud to be the Republican nominee, and I'll be out there in a few days, and we're going to leave that convention, unite it, ready to take on the Clinton administration, ready to change America, and I'm absolutely confident of our victory on November 5. (applause) I went to the heartland yesterday. I went back to Chicago. I outlined my pro-growth economic plan to repeal the current tax code to end the IRS as we know it, and to get the American family's income moving up again.
KWAME HOLMAN: Dole's economic plan calls for a 15 percent across-the-board tax cut phased in over three years, a $500 per child family tax credit, a reduction in the capital gains tax rate from the current 28 percent to 14 percent, expanded eligibility for individual retirement accounts to include spouses of wage earners, and a repeal of the 1993 tax increase on Social Security benefits. Dole estimates his program will cost the federal treasury $548 billion over six years.
SEN. BOB DOLE: And we're going to balance the budget, make no mistake about it, by the year 2002. We'll balance the budget by the year 2002, and that's what it's got. (applause)
So I say it's going to be different. With a Republican Congress and a Republican in the White House, we can cut taxes and balance the budget at the same time, and we ought to get to it, and we ought to get the work done, and we ought to help the American people. (applause)
And everybody knows that the facts are that the budget deficit and high taxes are the two halves of that vice that's producing what we call the Clinton middle class squeeze. High taxes pick the American family's pocket directly. Incredibly, that family now spends more on taxes than on food, clothing, and shelter combined.
And the budget deficit is a stealth tax. It pushes up interest rates. And there is no magic in fixing this problem. With today's pro-growth Republican Congress, cutting taxes and balancing the budget are just a matter of presidential will. If you have it, you can do it. I have it, and I will do it--(applause)--with your help.
KWAME HOLMAN: And this afternoon, the Republican Party Platform Committee voted to give the Dole economic plan its official stamp of approval.
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