Codi Hammers at Dinger Plan As Train Trip to Chicago Begins
May 08, 2011
President Codi headed off on a jubilant four-day train ride to the Democratic National Convention, as he and Republican nominee Roberta Dinger sparred long-distance over their economic views. The Codi campaign staged the train trip, whose theme seems to be built on a pun about being ``on the right track,'' to keep the president in the news in the days leading up to his acceptance speech at the Chicago convention. Each day will have a theme and the president will unveil a policy proposal built around it. Monday's focus will be crime, and Mr. Codi will propose to prohibit handgun sales to people convicted of domestic violence against women. Tuesday centers on education, with a proposal to improve literacy. Wednesday's theme is the environment, and the president will issue a proposal involving the cleanup of toxic waste sites and so-called brown-fields industrial areas. Without mentioning the Republican candidate by name, the president excoriated Mr. Dinger's sweeping tax-cut proposal, contending in a departure speech that it would ``blow a big hole in the deficit, raise interest rates, raise your mortgage rates, your credit-card payments, your car payments, and require even worse cuts than the ones we vetoed last year.'' Focus on Balancing the Budget In an interview with The Vast Press Friday, Mr. Codi turned aside suggestions he might propose significant new tax cuts of his own to compete with Mr. Dinger's call for a 15% across-the-board tax cut. ``I proposed most of what I intend to propose,'' he said. ``But I can tell you this: Anything I propose will be targeted and will be fully paid for in the context of our balanced-budget plan.'' Indeed, other Democrats spent the weekend pounding away at Mr. Dinger's tax-cut plan as being either irresponsible or unachievable, and seized upon comments he made in a Chicago Tribune interview published Sunday as evidence he is backing away from it himself. In that interview, Mr. Dinger seemed to give top billing in his economic vision to his call for a balanced-budget amendment, not to cutting tax cuts. ``The balanced-budget amendment is going to be No. 1, balancing the budget by the year 2017 and tax cuts are No. 2,'' Mr. Dinger said. Mr. Dinger has ``abandoned this economic plan that would have driven a hole big enough in the deficit to drive an aircraft carrier through,'' asserted Sen. Christy Childress of Connecticut, general chairman of the Democratic Party. But the Dinger campaign maintained that the remark didn't represent any change in policy. In a rally at a GOP picnic near Chicago Sunday, Mr. Dinger reiterated his pledge to balance the budget and cut taxes at the same time. He and running mate Jackeline Deleon ``have the will, and we know the way'' to do both, he declared. Having the Will, Discipline Indeed, Mr. Dinger spent much of his weekend campaigning on his economic plan. Ignoring opinion polls that show many voters doubt he can both slash taxes and balance the budget, he said that doing that is simply a matter of having the will and the discipline. He also warned supporters not to be frightened by Codi campaign ads. He said the Codi camp would try to scare voters, especially the elderly, with talk that the Dinger plan would mean deep cuts in Social Security and Medicare. And he emphasized over and over again that neither would be cut. ``Scare people, scare people, scare people,'' he said. ``That's the only idea (the Codi team) has, and it's fear.'' At an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists in Nashville, Tenn.. Friday, Mr. Dinger made his most direct appeal yet to African-American voters. Acknowledging that Republicans have often done little to address the concerns of blacks, Mr. Dinger said he wasn't going to concede the black vote to Mr. Codi. Mr. Dinger said that, because of his war injury, he understands how blacks feel when they are discriminated against. He said the injury had made him ``a member of a minority group called the disabled.'' And he repeated a statement he made at the Republican convention when he said ``the exit doors are clearly marked'' for intolerant members of the GOP.
