Gore fires back as Bush attacks his stand on Social Security

Friday, March 24th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

ORLANDO, Fla. - George W. Bush came out swinging Thursday on Social Security, again blasting Al Gore as an obstacle to reform. And the vice president fought back, accusing the governor of risking the system's future to finance unneeded tax cuts.

"You can't reform Social Security unless you recognize it's a problem. He said it's not a problem. He said it's not broken. There's no need to fix it. Those are his words, not mine," Mr. Bush said of his Democratic rival for the White House.

In Ohio, Mr. Gore called Mr. Bush's tax-cut plan the biggest threat to retirement funding, contending that any schoolchild could "go to the blackboard and demonstrate how his numbers don't add up."

Mr. Gore accuses the governor of endangering the Social Security Trust Fund by proposing to divert some of the federal budget surplus to a $483 billion tax cut. The vice president wants to use the entire Social Security surplus to pay down debt and shore up the retirement fund.
The Gore campaign likes to point out that Sen. John McCain, who was Mr. Bush's chief rival for the GOP nomination, often criticized the governor's proposed tax cut as a threat to Social Security. And the campaign said again that the proposal would return the country to the "Bush-Quayle era of deficits and recession."

"Governor Bush is pushing a risky tax scheme when we need to be protecting Social Security," said Gore campaign spokesman Douglas Hattaway. "His failure to lead on Social Security reform shows that he lacks the experience America needs. Al Gore will use our prosperity wisely to pay down the national debt while protecting Social Security and Medicare - not blow it on a reckless tax cut for the wealthy."

Mr. Bush has not offered a detailed plan to reform Social Security but reiterated an outline Thursday to about 400 students at the mostly Hispanic Colonial High School in Orlando.

One young woman asked Mr. Bush what he would do to shore up Social Security - a question that dovetailed nicely with Mr. Bush's planned line of attack for the day.

He said he would not reduce benefits for workers nearing retirement, would dedicate all payroll taxes to the retirement fund and would let younger workers invest some of their retirement taxes in the stock market.
Even as he bludgeoned Mr. Gore over Social Security, he vowed not to politicize the issue as president. "I intend to say to both Republicans and Democrats, this is not going to be a political issue anymore," he told students. "The issue is too important for partisan politics."

Speaking with reporters afterward, Mr. Bush expanded on his assertion, in a Washington Post interview this week, that Mr. Gore stands as an "obstacle to reform." He cited not only Social Security but tax relief and campaign finance as areas where Mr. Gore either lacks credibility or is too partisan to be effective.
Mr. Gore labeled Mr. Bush's critique a personal attack and said it was not surprising because "Pat Robertson Republicans have been known for this."

In the library of the Sands Montessori Elementary School in Cincinnati, Mr. Gore executed some confusing big-numbers math, warning parents, teachers and schoolchildren that the Bush tax cuts would spend the federal budget surplus and then some.

"Any of the children in this room could take out a piece of chalk and go to the blackboard and demonstrate how his numbers don't add up. One trillion plus one trillion equals two trillion and, if you have a non-Social Security surplus of one trillion, two trillion minus one trillion still leaves one trillion."

Mr. Gore continued: "Social Security? If you privatize, raise the retirement age and cut benefits, that would be one of the ways to make [Mr. Bush's] numbers add up."

The Texas governor has said he would avoid those approaches.

The candidates campaigned Thursday in states that carry significant weight in the fall election. Florida holds 25 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. In Ohio, where Mr. Gore also picked up $300,000 in political contributions at a luncheon for the Democratic National Committee, the Nov. 7 election will award 21 electoral votes.

Mr. Bush predicted that he'll win in Florida with help from his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, despite a new poll showing Mr. Gore slightly ahead.

Mr. Bush attended a fund-raiser Thursday night in West Palm Beach that aides said would bring in about $750,000. On Friday, he expected to raise $250,000 at a luncheon in Little Rock, Ark., where President Clinton served as governor, and to visit Central High School, site of a historic desegregation fight.

The Bush campaign has spent all but $7.5 million of the record $73.9 million raised so far, and hopes to collect $15 million to $20 million more by this summer's national conventions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.