NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
He's on numerous magazine covers this week, and there's an outside chance he could be the next president of the United States. But what plans does Dr. Howard Dean have for the U.S. economy?
So far, not many -- though he's promised to present a detailed economic plan in the fall, his ideas to date have been broad strokes.
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| Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean |
Former Vermont Governor Dean, a Democratic presidential candidate, has generated a lot of heat very early for the 2004 campaign, getting his likeness plastered on the covers of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report in the same week.
He's gambled -- and, so far, won -- by aggressively criticizing President Bush, including the president's handling of the sluggish U.S. economy.
But so far, Dean has offered little in the way of an economic alternative, and a major part of his plan -- repealing this year's tax cuts -- isn't exactly getting a warm reception from economists.
"I don't know of many serious economists who think that a tax increase, immediately implemented, is a good idea," said David Kelly, an economist at Putnam Investments.
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Bush claims the tax cuts passed earlier this year and enacted in July will spur consumer demand and business investment, helping the labor market finally recover from the 2001 recession.
Democrats note that another tax cut, passed in 2001, did little to create jobs, and say both tax cuts have contributed to an abrupt reversal in the nation's fiscal health -- the federal budget swung from a surplus in 2001 to deficits in 2003 projected to be the largest in U.S. history.
"The Bush administration philosophy has become 'borrow and spend' and let our children and grandchildren pick up the pieces," Dean said on his Web site.
Ideas from the left and the right
Of course, many Republicans probably would dismiss many of the plans Dean has proposed so far as just so much stereotypical liberal "tax and spend" policy.
In addition to repealing the tax cuts, Dean also has proposed:
- raising the minimum wage;
- expanding unemployment insurance;
- giving more money to cash-strapped state and local governments;
- "infrastructure investment" programs such as school construction and increasing rural broadband access;
- establishing a national health-care plan; and
- creating trade policy that will shore up "middle class" jobs -- a subtle reference to the flow of U.S. jobs offshore.
Dean also has called for a balanced budget and full funding for Social Security and Medicare, though he has not yet explained how he would pay for all these programs under a balanced budget.
But Dean has at least one economic policy idea that might appeal to Republicans: the simplification of the tax code, an issue on which Republican Steve Forbes has built a political career.
And Dean's record as Vermont's governor established him as a fiscal conservative. He twice cut tax rates, balanced the state's budget and implemented business-friendly policies to spur corporate investment, winning himself a centrist reputation in a largely liberal state.
It's entirely possible, in fact, that Dean's early policy declarations are being made at least in part to satisfy his liberal base, and that he'll rely more on his centrist record if he ends up running against Bush in a general election.
"That's a classic move in both parties -- appeal to the base to win primaries, then move to the center in a general election -- and I think he will do that," said Greg Valliere, political economist at Schwab Washington Research. "He will cite his record as governor, which was moderate, especially for Vermont."
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