WASHINGTON, 11 March 2004 — Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said yesterday he will ask Americans earning more than $200,000 a year to pay the taxes they paid under President Bill Clinton, and pledged to retain President George Bush’s tax cuts for the middle class and even add to them.
“Under George Bush’s policies, middle-class families are paying more. America’s middle class can’t afford a tax increase,” Kerry told labor leaders. He accused the president of draining thousands of dollars from working families and practicing “the politics of blame.”
“George Bush is running on the same old Republican tactics of fear — and they’re already getting tired,” he said. “It’s clear that this president will fight like hell to keep his own job, but he won’t lift a finger to help Americans keep theirs.”
Just hours after a four-state sweep in primary elections that moved him tantalizingly close to claiming the Democratic nomination, Kerry toured a mechanical contracting business and spoke via satellite to leaders of the AFL-CIO, the largest US trade union federation, gathered in Bal Harbour, Florida, for their winter convention.
Kerry swept the four Southern states that elected delegates Tuesday and was returning to Washington to meet with Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who had been one of Kerry’s top rivals for the Democratic nomination.
He was scheduled to meet today with John Edwards, who left the campaign after the Super Tuesday elections of March 2.
