Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic White House candidate John Kerry battled over taxes on Monday, with Cheney accusing Kerry of planning huge tax hikes and Kerry labeling the charges a sign of "mid-October desperation."
With US retail gasoline prices at a record high, Kerry yesterday proposed a new policy to reduce fuel costs, igniting a political fight over how much Americans pay at the pump.
Blaming the spike on the "failed policies" of Republican President George W. Bush -- a former Texas oilman -- Kerry would pressure oil-producing nations to increase production and temporarily suspend filling the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, campaign aides said.
Cheney, expanding Republican efforts to point Kerry as a classic tax-and-spend Democrat, called Kerry "one of the most reliable pro-tax" votes in the US Senate and said he "opposed tax relief as a matter of principle."
Less than two weeks after a speech in California attacking Kerry's foreign policy and security views, Cheney accused the four-term senator from Massachusetts of planning to eliminate many expiring tax cuts and said he faced a US$1 trillion gap in paying for his own spending proposals.
Kerry has chosen San Diego, which has the highest gas prices in the country -- US$2.12 for a gallon of regular unleaded -- to lay out his proposals.
"I happened to notice that gas is now close to US$3 a gallon here in California," he told a fund-raiser in San Francisco. "If it keeps going up like that, [Vice President] Dick Cheney and President Bush are going to have to carpool to work together."
The US Energy Information Administration on Monday announced the average nationwide price of regular unleaded gasoline set a new high of US$1.758 per gallon. The agency predicted prices will move even higher in April and May.
In Sacramento, California, Kerry said President George W. Bush's economic policy had cost Americans 3 million jobs and was driving gasoline prices toward US$3 a gallon.
"That's their policy and they're now running a campaign of untruths, of misleading America. They're running a campaign in March of mid-October desperation," he said.
Kerry said Cheney's designated role seemed to be "not to create jobs, but to attack John Kerry" and called Cheney's charges the "latest distortion" from the White House.
"Here is the truth," he said. "Under my plan, 98 percent of Americans will get a tax cut at the federal level from John Kerry's administration."
Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who has been under fire from Republicans for advocating higher gasoline taxes in the Senate, would "arm twist" members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase production.
"A Kerry administration would act immediately to exert pressure on OPEC to abandon its cut in output quotas and instead increase oil supplies," the aides said.
Republicans as well as Democrats have urged the Bush administration to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- America's emergency crude oil stockpile -- to keep more oil in the market.
The White House has refused, saying that the scheduled crude oil deliveries to the stockpile have a "negligible" impact on market prices. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said last week the US was not going "to beg for oil."
Kerry would temporarily suspend filling SPR until oil prices return to normal levels.
Other elements of his proposal include working with states to develop "rational" fuel policies that ensure local air quality is protected while reducing market problems resulting from the number of boutique fuels used around the country.
Kerry would also offer tax incentives to encourage Americans to use energy more cleanly and efficiently, fund the development of alternative energy sources like wind and solar and develop domestic oil and gas supplies.
Kerry opposes the Bush administration's plan to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and other pristine areas.
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