THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608230369
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 64 lines
The wish list that Virginians reveal to researchers is all but identical to the economic plan offered by GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole - including built-in contradictions.
A public-opinion company, The Harwood Group, undertook a recent survey of Virginians' attitudes for this newspaper and the Roanoke Times. Bob Dole might have based his economic plan on the responses.
The top two concerns of Virginians are the state of the economy and how government raises and spends money. Among the findings:
Family finances are being squeezed as many people find it harder and harder to make ends meet.
There are not enough jobs - especially jobs that pay good wages.
Virginians fear that the United States isn't staying competitive with other countries and that, as a result, good jobs are going overseas.
The squeeze obviously makes a tax cut of the sort the Republicans are touting sound appealing. Supply-siders argue that lowering taxes will also lead to more investment which in turn will create jobs. That's debatable.
Job growth under Clinton has been robust, in part because Wall Street has reacted favorably to a serious attempt at deficit reduction. Backsliding on deficit reduction could backfire. There's also no reason to believe the incentives the GOP proposes would necessarily create jobs in the United States as opposed to overseas.
The Harwood researchers also note that in other studies they've conducted ``people see an important link between the quality of schools, students' readiness for the jobs of the future, peoples' economic prospects and the country's international competitiveness.''
For that reason, perhaps, this study found that Virginians fear ``that the quality of education is not what it should be and that more resources need to be devoted to education.''
More resources for schooling reflects proposals made by Clinton and the Democrats rather than Dole's education plan, which appears to consist of pinning blame for failing schools on teachers' unions and solving the problem through school choice.
The researchers discovered that many Virginians agree that running huge federal deficits threatens the strength of the economy and jeopardizes the prosperity of future generations. But they also found that enthusiasm for the belt-tightening needed to end deficits is lacking.
Instead, Virginians want lower taxes. They are willing to spend less on foreign aid - now about 1 percent of the budget - and on welfare. But Virginians balk at big cuts in the programs that account for most of the budget; Medicare, Social Security, defense and interest on the debt.
In fact, this research found that Virginians want to allocate more for the military and education, for taking care of the elderly and providing them with health care.
It's not surprising that most election forecasters put Virginia solidly in the GOP column since the Dole plan mirrors these desires. It too calls for cuts in taxes, no cuts in middle-class entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, more spending on defense and a balanced budget.
That's a delightful program but one that defies logic. A household with big debts can't reduce them to nothing while spending more and bringing home less pay. Neither can a nation. Even staunch Dole supporter, Sen. John Warner, worries that the candidate's plan could increase interest rates and the deficit. The GOP may be telling Virginians what they want to hear, but voters ought to be demanding a more-detailed explanation of how such budgetary magic is possible. by CNB