18 in Nevada GOP send letter to Bush over costly policies

Kirsten Searer

Thursday, Sept. 23, 2004 | 11:22 a.m.

Eighteen Nevada Republicans signed a letter delivered Wednesday to the local Bush-Cheney headquarters telling President Bush they feel his policies are too costly.

Estimates show that Bush's agenda for the next term would cost taxpayers $3 trillion, compared to the $2 trillion estimated cost of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's proposals, the women said.

"One of the basic Republican principles is fiscal responsibility," said Las Vegas resident Barbara Jones, a 59-year-old computer software worker who said she has been unemployed for almost three years.

Jones and two other members of Republicans for Kerry delivered the letter Wednesday. They said they are lifelong Republicans upset with the growing debt, the war in Iraq, the diversion of focus from Afghanistan to Iraq, rising health care costs and the deployment of jobs overseas.

"(Bush) touted himself in 2000 as being the compassionate conservative, yet I see no compassion and no conservatism," said Casilda Pagan, a 32-year-old housewife.

Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, pointed to estimates that Kerry's programs, including expanded health care coverage, mandatory funding for veterans health care, adding another 40,000 active-duty troops, fully funding Head Start, more tax credits for college education and others, would cost an estimated $2.8 trillion.

Schmitt said that the estimate is based on a Washington Post estimate of what it would cost to fix Social Security and make the tax cuts permanent.

"John Kerry is clearly an advocate of massive new government spending," she said.

Schmitt pointed out that Bush has already produced a 2005 budget that includes increases for defense and homeland security spending, while holding the rest of discretionary spending to 0.5 percent growth.

"President Bush remains committed to cutting the deficit in half in the next five years," she said.

Sean Smith, a spokesman for the local Kerry campaign, said Kerry has put out no official estimates on how much his proposals would cost, but he has pledged to cover them by reinstating the Bush tax cuts for upper-income families.

"We have a pay-as-you-go approach," Smith said. "All of the spending proposals that John Kerry has made with respect to health care for all, expanded prescription drugs for seniors and increased education spending are paid for by closing the tax loopholes and restoring the pre tax-cut rates for the highest two percent of wage earners."