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WASHINGTON (AFX) -- For a preview of the campaign battle over the U.S. economy that will dominate the run-up to the 2006 midterm elections, look no further than Sen. Hillary Clinton's Tuesday speech before the Economic Club of Chicago.
The speech didn't begin until evening, but that didn't stop Republican operatives from flooding reporters' in-boxes by midafternoon with missives painting the putative frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination as a serial tax hiker eager to undo what they described as the overwhelming economic success stories of the Bush administration.
For her part, Clinton didn't paint the economy as an unmitigated disaster in her speech. But, without mentioning President Bush by name, she did home in on what have long been key Democratic criticisms of the administration's fiscal policies and resulting budget deficits.
'Priorities and values'
"Red-ink fiscal policies will undermine America's competitiveness. We have to ask ourselves whether our taxing and spending policies are in line with our economic goals. Do we have the right priorities and values in the federal budget?" Clinton said.
On the tax front, Clinton said tax cuts aren't enough by themselves to secure the middle class. "It takes the right tax system and the right investments, including infrastructure. And right now we don't have either," the senator said.
Clinton called for the reinstatement of "pay as you go" budget rules, which require that entitlement spending increases and future tax cuts be rendered budget-neutral through either spending cuts or tax hikes elsewhere.
Democrats contend there's less to recent job gains than meets the eye. While payrolls have grown by 5.1 million since bottoming in 2003, the pace of job growth has lagged well behind that seen in previous recoveries.
And public opinion polls give Republicans reason to worry about how well the economy is playing with voters.
A Washington Post-ABC News survey released earlier this week found Democrats with a six-percentage-point advantage over Republicans (49% to 43%) as the party most trusted to handle the economy.
The same survey found that 38% of the public approve of the overall job Bush is doing, an all-time low for his presidency. Thirty-five percent approved of the way the GOP-led Congress is doing its job, a nine-year low.
GOP response
Republicans were quick to take issue with Clinton.
The White House issued a statement Tuesday afternoon from Bush crediting his first-term tax cuts with providing $880 billion in relief to American taxpayers, which, according to the statement, has in turn fueled the creation of new jobs and economic growth.
"Not everyone in Washington agreed with the decision to let people keep more of their own money. On the day that Republicans in the House and Senate were finalizing the 2003 tax cuts, one Democratic leader said these cuts would 'do nothing to create jobs.' Facts have proven the critics wrong 5.1 million times over," the statement read.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert was more direct: "It's sad to see that Sen. Clinton has resorted to 'pie-in-the-sky' scare tactics to talk down the economy. Maybe it's time Democratic leaders developed a real agenda instead of their usual tax-and-spend strategy on the economy," the Illinois Republican said in a statement. This story was supplied by MarketWatch. For further information see
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