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Democratic Runners Rap Bush on Iraq, Taxes

Posted on: Thursday, 22 January 2004, 06:00 CST

Democratic presidential contenders criticized President Bush over tax cuts and postwar Iraq in campaign debate Thursday night, claiming his policies have shortchanged the middle class and burdened troops called up by the thousands for overseas duty.

"He has not helped the average American advance their cause and I will," said Sen. John Kerry, voicing sentiments echoed by Howard Dean and Joe Lieberman.

In the final debate before next week's New Hampshire primary, Dean also sought to minimize a memorably loud speech he made before supporters after a third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, and retired Gen. Wesley Clark strongly defended his Democratic credentials.

"I'm pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, pro-environment and pro-labor," he said. "I was either going to be the loneliest Republican in America or I was going to be a happy Democrat."

Kerry, who is enjoying a large bounce in the polls in the days since his Iowa caucus win, said he welcomed a debate with Bush in the general election over tax cuts, even if Republicans accuse the Democrat of voting to raise taxes and increase federal spending by billions.

"If President Bush wants to stand beside me and defend" cutting taxes on the wealthy "instead of giving all Americans health care and education so no child is truly left behind, that's a fight we deserve to have, that's a fight we will win," the Massachusetts senator said.

Dean, the former Vermont governor, renewed his call to repeal all of Bush's tax cuts, a position that places him apart from Kerry, Lieberman and Sen. John Edwards, all of whom want to retain cuts for the middle class.

As he has argued before, Dean said there was "no middle-class tax cut in this country. Somebody has got to stand up and say we can't have everything in this country. Somebody has got to tell the truth."

Lieberman, asked whether he was satisfied with Kerry's response, turned his answer to his own argument that he can defeat Bush.

"They can't say I flip-flopped because I don't. They can't say I'm weak on defense because I'm not. They can't say I'm weak on values because I'm not," the Connecticut senator said.

Lieberman, trailing Kerry, Dean, Edwards and Clark in the New Hampshire polls, also said Bush had recently said in a private conversation that the Democrat best positioned to defeat him in the fall was Lieberman.

"... Incidentally, this is an opinion on which I agree with President Bush," he said to laughter from the debate audience.

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