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trict, he said, are telling him they see no improvement from last summer. He attacked the Republican Bush Administration for purposefully keeping a lid on the economy so that the president can ride a bogus “recovery” into reelection.
“By this time next year, you’ll see an improvement in the economy,” Mr. Reed predicted.
Mr. Reed’s two changes that would pump up the economy are a jobs program aimed atj"tmproving the crumbling infrastructure, and a middle class tax cut, funded by a surtax on the super rich (which he defines as the country’s top 2 percent in net worth).
His jobs program would improve the country’s highways, bridges and other major projects while cutting unemployment by putting the jobless to work. There are “ways” to pay for the projects over the short term, and over the long term they would pay for themselves, he said.
On abortion, the one issue that alone has won and lost political campaigns in the past few years, Mr. Reed is a pro-choicer, although he played down the issue.
“I do not think abortion will be a leading issue in my campaign. As the father of two daughters, I feel strongly that any woman is entitled to make her own choice,” he said, adding that young men need better education about sex and that adoption processes need to be improved.
A national health-care solution, said candidate Mr. Reed, “is long overdue.” He promised to “light a fire under the House of Representatives” in order to get such a national approach, and issued the following challenge to Republican Allen: “I’d like to see Mr. Allen do the same thing with the Bush-Quayle team.”
He favors taxing employers who don’t supply health-care insurance, then paying for uninsured patients from the pool of tax revenues.
Mr. Reed, like his Democratic opponents Ms. Slaughter and Mr. Green, fashions himself a “conservative Democrat,” hedging on such traditionally liberal issues as the environment.
Saying “our first priority is an improving economy,” Mr. Reed would work in Congress “to make every effort to balance the environment with efforts for full employment.”
He favors “crime control,” not “gun control,” but endorses the instant computer check of criminal backgrounds for gun purchasers.
“Virginia Democrats, every one I’ve ever known, are pretty conservative people. The Democratic Party exists under a pretty broad umbrella,” he said.
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