JOHNSTON, Iowa -- George W. Bush accused John McCain on
Saturday of seeking a $40 billion tax increase on the job benefits
of American workers, and the senator retorted that the governor was
trying a ''Texas two-step'' around his own failure to plan for the
future financing of Social Security.
Steve Forbes called them both ''the timid tax cutters'' of the
Republican presidential campaign.
Their tax arguments dominated a 90-minute debate among the six
GOP candidates for the 2000 nomination, their last Iowa
confrontation before the first votes of the year are cast in the
Jan. 24 precinct caucuses.
Bush is the faraway leader in the Iowa polls, with Forbes a
lagging second, and McCain, who is not actively campaigning, Gary
Bauer, Sen. Orrin Hatch, and Alan Keyes trailing the field.
Bush challenged McCain on a loophole-closing proposal in his
tax-cut plan that would eliminate the tax-free treatment of
workplace benefits including continuing education, transportation
and meals.
''You have a plan that in essence raises taxes on working people
by $40 billion,'' Bush said.
''I'm giving them a huge tax cut,'' McCain countered. ''And the
reality is that your tax plan has 36 percent of it going to the
richest one percent in America.''
So McCain said he could tell a working mother ''I've got a tax
cut for you and Governor Bush doesn't.''
''That's not true,'' Bush replied.
Besides, McCain said, the Bush tax cut, $483 billion over five
years, ''has not one penny for Social Security, not one penny for
Medicare and not one penny for paying down the national debt.
''And when you run ads saying you're going to take care of
Social Security, my friend, that's all hat and no cattle,'' McCain
said.
''That's cute, but ... '' Bush countered.
''You know, they're always cutest when they're true,'' said
McCain.
''That's not true,'' Bush said.
The McCain campaign issued a statement saying that his $240
billion, five-year tax cut plan, would end ''a loophole that
allowed corporations to get a tax benefit for giving employes
things like golf and health club memberships and free parking.''
Campaign manager Rick Davis said that would end ''corporate
welfare'' to finance a working class tax cut and put money into
Social Security.
McCain is concentrating his campaign on the New Hampshire
presidential primary on Feb. 1, and Forbes is Bush's closest rival
in Iowa, but far behind in the polls.
Forbes challenged Bush on taxes, too.
He said the governor's Texas tax cuts ''are more apparent than
real,'' that most Texans never see them.
''Not only are my tax cuts real, they've reduced the baseline of
the budget,'' Bush said.
Forbes said in six out of 10 Texas districts, the property tax
rate went up in 1999. ''That's a Clinton tax cut,'' Forbes said.
''That's the kind he would like. Raise the tax and call it a tax
cut.''
''Steve, look, that's good research, it's not true,'' Bush
retorted.
''I'm the one person on this stage who has fought for and signed
tax cuts,'' Bush said. ''... ''I've got a good record, I'm the only
one on this stage who's got a record endorsed by the people.''
Bush cited an ad taken by Bob Dole in The Des Moines Register on
Saturday, in which the 1996 GOP nominee said he'd been damaged
against the Democrats by attack ads Forbes ran against him in the
primaries.
''If you're going to talk about a man's record, tell the whole
record,'' Bush told Forbes. ''And I cut taxes.''
Forbes, who proposes a 17 percent flat tax, has ads attacking
Bush for breaking a 1994 anti-tax pledge in Texas by including
increases in some sales and business taxes in a plan to cut
property taxes, a net tax reduction.
McCain, running as a Republican reformer, later threw in a slap
at a federal subsidy popular with Iowa farmers, saying that he'd
end the ethanol program along with special tax breaks and loopholes
because they do not serve the interest of the American people.
Ethanol is a fuel derived from corn.
''Like most government programs, it lived on forever,'' past its
birth in the 1970s when the country was in a crisis over imported
oil, McCain said.
In a lecturing tone, Bush rebutted. ''I believe that we ought to
increase demand for Iowa products. That is what ethanol does, John,
it increases the demand for Iowa products.''
When they weren't disputing their own rival ideas, Hatch, Bauer,
Keyes, Forbes, Bush and McCain took turns denouncing President
Clinton and his administration for its policies and for his
conduct.
Bush slipped in a slap at Vice President Al Gore and Bill
Bradley, the Democratic candidates, saying they sound as though
they want the federal government to make all the decisions about
American health care. The Republicans, to a man, oppose that, he
said.
Bauer said he supports a patients bill of rights, which is
anathema to most conservatives. ''There's nothing Republican or
conservative about standing with'' big HMOs in opposition to it, he
said.
McCain said the only way to get needed action on health care is
to reform political financing, his keynote issue, so that insurers
and HMOs can't get special interest treatment.
In one segment of the debate, the Republicans questioned each
other, and Keyes asked Bush about a Texas town in which the city
council voted to have all business conducted in Spanish. He called
that an assault on ''linguistic unity'' and said Bush hadn't done
anything about it.
Bush began his answer in Spanish: ''That's not true.''
He said he had expressed concern about the episode, had told the
Texas attorney general to look into it. ''English is our nation's
language,'' Bush said. ''That's why I'm for programs to make sure
our children learn English.''
The GOP candidates debate next in Manchester, N.H., on Jan. 26,
six days before the first of the presidential primaries, in New
Hampshire on Feb. 1.
McCain has overtaken Bush in the polls there, running
statistically even with the national frontrunner in the latest
surveys.
Republican presidential hopefuls Sen. John McCain, of Arizona, and Gary Bauer, right, talk after the Des Moines Register Republican presidential candidates debate. (AP Photo)
