WASHINGTON, DC — In a speech at the Center for National Policy here, Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) said that the way the United States has won the “economic battle” in the past “is by keeping our fiscal house in order.” He noted, “I would like to make a case for a return to fiscal responsibility and a comprehensive new plan for economic growth.”

Daschle stated, “A year ago we had the resources and the flexibility to make virtually any urgent investments we needed. We don’t have that flexibility or those resources today.”

He assailed the Republican administration for an ideology that calls for “tax cuts no matter what the circumstances.”

Cutting taxes while increasing spending, he said, has created the “most dramatic fiscal deterioration in our nation’s history.” The tax cut not only failed to prevent a recession, “it probably made the recession worse.”

Daschle, the Senate majority leader, is considered a potential Democratic presidential candidate for 2004.

Publication date: 01/07/2002