Bush Visits Northern California to Press for Tax Cuts

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, May 03, 2003

Bush Visits Northern California to Press for Tax Cuts

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US President George W. Bush paid a brief visit Friday to a defense plant in northern California, where he pressed for his tax cut plan one day after declaring the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

Bush visited the United Defense Industries in Santa Clara, which developed the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the fast, high-tech troop transporters that were heavily used in Iraq. He had spent the night onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier heading home in San Diego, southern California.

Citing the 6 percent unemployment figure, Bush said the rising number should "serve as a clear signal to the United States Congress that we need a bold economic package so that people can find work."

"We've come through some hard times," he said, referring to the Iraq war, the recession, the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001 and the irresponsible accounting practices by some business executives.

Noting that "the economy has not been growing fast enough," Bush said his strategy to stimulate the economy is to use tax cuts to create more consumption and thus more jobs. "Let people keep more of their own money," he said.

The Santa Clara speech came one day after the While House signaled support for a compromise 550-billion-dollar tax cut plan in the Republican-led House, that would lower the top tax rates for stock dividends and capital gains. Bush originally proposed a 726-billion-dollar tax cut plan.

Democrats blamed the new tax cuts, citing that such a plan will hike deficits and lead to higher interest rates to benefit mainly the wealthy people.

The United Defense Industries is based in the Silicon Valley on the southern fringe of the San Francisco bay area, where the anti-war sentiment ran high during the Iraq war.

About 500 anti-war protesters staged a demonstration in Santa Clara on Friday, but Bush's motorcade bypassed their gathering on its way to the speech site. Protesters banged drums and chanted anti-war slogans. One waved a sign that read "Unemployment up, Stock down, Surplus gone, Deficit growing, Bush out 2004."

By taking on the economic issue after the Iraq war, Bush, who aims for reelection in 2004, was trying to learn lessons from his father, former President George Bush, who failed to win reelection despite the success of the first Gulf War in 1991 due to his failure to tackle the economy.

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