PRESS RELEASE
October 25, 1996

STATEMENT BY ANN LEWIS DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER

Despite last-minute, desperate attempts to prop-up Bob Dole's discredited supply-side tax plan, the facts speak for themselves:

78% of economists recently surveyed by The Economist magazine said that Dole's plan could not "derive 27% its cost through increased revenues and changing taxpayer behavior," and 83% of the same economists said that Dole's plan would not work without deeper cuts in Medicare and defense. [The Economist, 10/5/96].

Another 546 economists, including 7 Nobel prize winners, recently wrote a letter stating that Dole's plan would "raise the federal deficit," and lead to "lowering of future living standards," and that "The plan's assumptions that a substantial part of the revenue lost by reducing taxes will be offset by new revenues from additional economic growth is not credible." [EPI sponsored letter, 9/24/96]

Still unexplained by the Dole campaign is just how he will pay for his $548 billion plan. Unmentioned by the Dole campaign is that the same Coopers and Lybrand "study" they reference assumes enactment of Dole's 40% spending cuts in domestic areas such as education, the environment, border patrols, crime fighting, and drug interdiction -- cuts that are far deeper than proposed by the Dole-Gingrich Congress last year and rejected by the American people.

Time, Business Week, and the non-partisan Concord Coalition are among those who have confirmed that Dole's plan would require 40% cuts in these non-defense discretionary areas. Time magazine recently reported that such cuts would mean: 2,200 fewer National Parks rangers, 2,170 fewer Border Patrol agents, 42,100 fewer Bureau of Prisons spaces, 2.5 fewer NASA space shuttle flights, 4,000 fewer FBI agents, 2,960 fewer Drug Interdiction DEA staff, and 300,000 fewer Head Start opportunities. [Time, 9/23/96]

And other sources such as Business Week and Dole's own campaign Steering Committee Co-Chairman Republican Senator Al D'Amato say that the 83% of economists surveyed by The Economist are correct: realistically, Dole would have to cut Medicare in order to pay for his plan. As Business Week writes: "Where on earth does he come up with that kind of dough...? From popular programs, such as Medicare and environmental protections. But candidate Dole knows it's bad politics to admit that now." [Business Week, 8/19/96] Or, as Senator D'Amato said: "You can't just be cutting all of discretionary spending....You're gonna have to look at Medicare...I would never say it if I were him [Dole] until after the election. No way. No way. Absolutely. I mean I'm not running this year so I can say it and tell the truth." [Don Imus Radio Show, 8/12/96]

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