Happeniongs in the 2006 Campaign

Happenings in the 2006 campaign
Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS - DFL Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar said Tuesday that the country's debt and deficit spending is making it harder for middle class people to make ends meet.

Klobuchar, the Hennepin County attorney, proposed a series of measures to bring down the debt and erase the projected deficit. Part of that, Klobuchar said, is undoing President Bush's tax cuts on the richest 1 percent of Americans.

"I think the wealthiest of the wealthy can afford this, if it means helping the middle class, who are the engine of our economy," Klobuchar said in a policy speech at the University of Minnesota.

Republican Party spokesman Mark Drake said that undoing that portion of the Bush tax cut would affect a large number of small business owners, which in turn would be felt by their employees and customers.

But Klobuchar said erasing the projected deficit of $1.1 trillion by 2011 would benefit large numbers of Americans, helping to bring down interest rates on home mortgages, auto and student loans, personal debt and small business loans. It would also free up government resources for other needs.

Klobuchar proposed several means of bringing down the debt and erasing future deficits, including a "pay as you go" requirement that would require Congress to identify offsets for tax cuts or new spending and the closing of tax loopholes for corporations.

Klobuchar said she would also support one of the signature issues of her Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, who has called for giving the president line-item veto power to trim out wasteful spending.

Kennedy on Tuesday had scheduled two separate campaign fundraisers, with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

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