EEUU

Los Candidatos demócratas atacan las leyes

Autor: Jim VandeHei

Fecha: 18/11/2003

Traductor: Celeste Murillo, especial para P.I.

Fuente: Washington Post

Democratic presidential candidates lined up yesterday in opposition to Republican deals on energy and Medicare -- legislation that if passed would give President Bush two key political victories one year before the election.
Even before many of the details were known, the candidates blasted Bush for what they view as shortchanging consumers and using the bills to reward his campaign contributors. "The latest energy plan and the prescription drug benefit are more paybacks for George W. Bush's special-interest friends and campaign contributors," said Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), expressing the emerging Democratic message.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) is the only Democratic presidential candidate who may decide to support the Medicare bill, while all are united in opposing the energy bill. The two bills are the most significant policies to circulate on Capitol Hill in years. The Medicare bill received a big boost yesterday when AARP, the premier seniors lobby, endorsed it. [Story, Page A4.]
The candidates are coming together so quickly because they say the bills are bad policy. But some see a political benefit, too -- Bush is on the verge of taking away two more political issues and putting Democrats in the unenviable political position of playing defense on energy costs and prescription drug costs, two key areas of great concern for voters.
If the bills are passed and signed into law, Republicans and some Democrats predict Bush will probably get a political boost that could resonate through the 2004 elections. Along with Bush's tax cuts, education overhaul and defense policies, Republicans also could claim they are delivering tangible results to Americans by controlling the White House and Congress.
Piece by piece, Bush and the Republican Congress are trying to take domestic issues off the table before the 2004 elections fire up early next year. Because they control the White House, Senate and House for only the second time in half a century, Republicans anticipate that the elections will be a referendum on their performance, which will be measured in large part by their ability to break through the partisan gridlock that has come to define Washington in recent years. The Medicare and energy bills had been bottled up in private negotiations for months.
Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are critical of both the Medicare and energy deals, but they might have a hard time preventing moderates from breaking ranks and allowing Bush to declare bipartisan victories. Already, Sens. John Breaux (D-La.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) are hailing the Medicare agreement, which they helped strike, and several Democrats from oil- and ethanol-producing states are expected to vote for the energy package, too.
If Democrats can block the Medicare deal, in particular, they will carry with them one of the most potent political weapons in politics today: the charge that Bush and a GOP Congress cannot deliver the right medicine for the elderly, who vote in large numbers. But Democrats privately admit it is much harder to make this charge stick without AARP on their side.
A senior GOP leadership aide said party leaders "basically threaded a needle to get a bill AARP can endorse and Ted Kennedy can't." This aide said the GOP will run ads against vulnerable Democrats who oppose it, blasting them for voting against a bill "endorsed by the AARP."
Kerry said the "sticker shock" would prompt many seniors to turn on Bush, despite the AARP's stamp of approval. But the Medicare changes do not take effect until 2006, and some strategists say that might be a hard case to make before the election.
The GOP's energy bill offers a mix of tax incentives and grants to oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear and alternative-fuel production. It, too, has the strong support of energy companies and other Bush donors. Among the most politically attractive elements in the plan is a proposal to double the use of ethanol, a corn-based fuel additive popular with farmers in midwestern states such as Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota.
Democrats believe they can block the energy and Medicare bills by linking the policies to Bush's biggest donors. This is an approach Democrats have employed since Bush took office, and it has had mixed results. Democrats failed to link Bush to the wave of corporate scandals, but polls show that a majority of voters believe the president's policies favor the corporate elite.
While the energy bill is more of a regional issue -- most popular in states that produce the fuels assisted under the legislation -- former Vermont governor Howard Dean and other presidential candidates said Bush will pay a political price for signing a bill that favors big corporations, many of which are large political contributors to the Republicans.
"The energy bill released by the Republican leadership today is a perfect example of crony capitalism at its worst -- and is just another example of how our political system serves the interests of those who fund the election process," Dean said. "This bill is based on a policy written in the vice president's office by corporate lobbyists, contributors and insiders like Ken Lay. There is little wonder that the biggest winners in this bill are companies like Halliburton. The biggest losers are the American people."