UBUQUE, Iowa - A combative Vice President Al Gore yesterday strongly attacked his Democratic rival and the GOP front-runner, charging that former senator Bill Bradley and Texas Governor George W. Bush are ''poised to sacrifice fiscal responsibility'' with proposals that Gore said would erase the budget surplus.
Gore seemed to go out of his way to deliver his double-barreled attack, approaching reporters in the back of a meeting hall after an hourlong issues discussion with senior citizens.
He said Bradley's health care plan would leave no funds to extend Social Security or Medicare, much less pay for new initiatives such as education. Of Bush, Gore said: ''They've made these expansive promises about tax cuts. ... They cannot ... figure out any way to match reality to the rhetoric and still not spend all of the surplus.''
The Bush and Bradley campaigns called Gore's comments ill-informed and ill-advised.
''As Governor Bush has shown in Texas, you can fully fund services such as education and return surpluses to the taxpayers if you set the right priorities,'' said Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker.
In attacking Bradley's plan, Gore cited an analysis by Kenneth E. Thorpe, who was a senior official in the Department of Health and Human Services and a key analyst for the ill-fated health reform plan proposed by President Clinton.
Thorpe said Bradley's plan would cost ''nearly $1.2 trillion'' over 10 years while Gore's would cost $312 million.
