Gephardt focuses on economy

NICK ANDERSON AND JANET HOOK, LOS ANGELES TIMES

Originally published Wednesday, January 30, 2002

WASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., challenged President Bush on Tuesday to compromise on economic policy and embrace campaign finance reform, as Democrats continued to probe for election-year vulnerabilities in an administration with commanding public approval ratings.

Delivering the televised Democratic response to Bush's State of the Union address, Gephardt reiterated what has become his party's mantra since Sept. 11: that it backs the White House completely on the war on terrorism. But Gephardt said Bush and his fellow Republicans should respond with greater cooperation on bread-and-butter domestic issues.

"I refuse to accept that while we stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the war, we should stand toe-to-toe on the economy," Gephardt said in the advance text of his remarks. "We need to find a way to respect each other, and trust each other, and work together to solve the long-term challenges America faces. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and go to work."

Economic summit

To that end, Gephardt called on the White House to convene a bipartisan summit to address the nation's economic recession, a proposal the administration has already dismissed as a political stunt.

Even as Gephardt called for the two parties to work more closely on the domestic agenda, he sought to depict Democrats as more attuned to the public on those issues.

For instance, he said that Democrats are committed to "helping the unemployed -- not just large corporations and the most fortunate."

Enron

And he invoked the Enron Corp. scandal, saying the company's ties to the administration and Capitol Hill through millions of dollars in political donations spotlight the need for campaign finance reform.

"If the nation's largest bankruptcy coupled with a clear example of paid political influence isn't a prime case for reform, I don't know what is," Gephardt said. "I hope the president will stand with us to clean up the political system and get big money out of politics."

The president favors a more moderate reform bill than the one leading Democrats and a handful of renegade Republicans are pushing.

On the Web:

- White House

- Text of President Bush's State of the Union address

- Sound Off at TheOlympian.com: State of the Union topics

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