AYTOWN, Mo. - Sensing an opening in reports of Texas budget troubles, Vice President Al Gore is juggling his schedule to make a detour into Bush's backyard today to argue his point in person.
Gore, who has spent the week unveiling anti-crime initiatives between attacks on what he says is the governor's fiscal irresponsibility, will be in San Antonio at noon today. There, he will criticize Bush's handling of the economy, in which Gore said the state's surplus this year fell from $6.4 billion to about $350 million.
The trip was not previously scheduled, but the Gore campaign hopes to capitalize on news reports suggesting that Texas's fiscal situation has worsened over the last year.
''The numbers continue not to add up,'' said Gore spokesman Chris Lehane, referring to Bush's budget. ''It's become a major issue in the campaign.''
The Bush campaign maintains Gore has exaggerated the shortfall, and that the state has more than ample funds to cover its expenses.
Gore spent several weeks on a ''Progress and Prosperity'' tour, traveling the country to herald the administration's success in producing record federal budget surpluses, and promising more of the same. In recent days, he has also gone on the attack, seizing on the shrinking Texas surplus to chip away at a record of which the governor is very proud.
''How Governor Bush has run Texas is relevant to the judgment the American people will make as to how he would run the country if they ever gave them the chance,'' Gore told an audience of about 100 law enforcement and government officials gathered at the Raytown City Hall.
Gore was asked whether his trip to Texas was meant to evoke then Vice President George Bush's trip to Massachusetts in 1988, when he pilloried his opponent, Governor Michael S. Dukakis, for the pollution in Boston Harbor.
''It never crossed my mind,'' Gore said. He added that it was the Clinton-Gore administration that ultimately made funds available for the Boston Harbor cleanup.
Gore also spoke of some additional anti-crime notions yesterday. He proposed to add 50,000 more police officers, and 10,000 new prosecutors, to the nation's justice system, to increase the number of state and local prosecutors by a third. He also proposed targeting so-called crime ''hot-spots'' by making grants to those areas, to pay for police overtime, and to improve communications between local and federal law enforcement authorities.
''Obviously, the Vice President is always welcome to Texas,'' said Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett. ''But Texans won't appreciate his continued misrepresentations and distortions of the record in Texas.''
Governor Bush will be in Austin, Texas tomorrow, Bartlett said. .
