Portsmouth Herald Sunday July 16, 1995LUGAR BRINGS IDEAS TO NH
GOP hopeful visits Newfields
By Shirley Jacques Herald Staff
NEWFIELDS - If he's elected president, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., sees America in 2008 as a land of dynamic economic growth where citizens treat each other with a decent, human spirit.
The Republican hopeful, on his eighth trip to New Hampshire, chose Newfields to kick off a major presidential campaign tour.
After a 40-minute talk at town hall yesterday, Lugar responded to a question about presidential leadership - as opposed to management - and his vision of American.
"Euphoric in terms of higher wages," he said. "Man does not live by bread alone, but it will be a period of dynamic economic growth."
The former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee predicted it would be a much safer world. "We will have strong alliances with Europe, Asia, and the Mid East."
Lugar called on President Clinton to attend the conference on Bosnia. "If we are going to put Americans in harm's way to extricate the 22,000 forces there now, we need a vote of Congress. NATO has a plan to get the people out with minimal casualties.
"When people are out, then we need a strong NATO in central Europe to prevent an extension of the war. After that I would end the embargo so they can defend themselves," Lugar said.
Actually it is "the leftovers of the Cold War that are not under control and could get into the hands of terrorists" that concern him most.
"If the terrorists at the World Trade Center, who have no qualms, or those in Oklahoma City had highly enriched uranium instead of agricultural fertilizer, they could have blown a crater three square miles wide in Oklahoma.
"I'd go after alliances that have come apart. Our problems will not come from Bosnia, but will come from terrorists," he said.
A businessman who still owns a farm, Lugar is one of nine Republican presidential hopefuls already quite visible in this first primary state. He announced in Indianapolis on April 19, the day of the Oklahoma City bombing.
His Campaign move to the Seacoast yesterday, hosted by the newly organized Newfields Republican Committee.
Fans cooled the town hall while three dozen GOP faithful waited for the senator. True to presidential campaign form, he was running more than a half hour late.
Launching into his major economic focus, balancing the budget and tax reform, Lugar said both are necessary for the average wage earner "who has lost ground with income down 2 percent in the past year."
A higher rate of growth to create real jobs can be achieved only with incentives for investment and savings, he believes.
"This requires balancing the budget. It can be done in seven years with a zero deficit. By that time, 20 percent of our entire budget will be spent on interest, on debt service alone."
He believes the tax system must be changed, radically. "We must pull up what we have now by the roots and plant something else. We have to change the income tax as we know it now and move to a consumption tax collected by the states, not IRS.
"The present system depresses any incentive to save and invest. Under my system the $1 you earn would by yours, no withholding. You could spend it or save it. When you spend it, you would pay a national consumer tax, probably about 17 percent. Low income families would receive a $5,000 exemption or $20,000 per family of four."
Lugar, who has visited Vietnam with Sen. John McCain, a POW, believes Clinton is right in recognizing Vietnam. "We are more likely to get information on POWs and MIAs by normalizing relations," he said.
At 36, Lugar's first job as mayor of Indianapolis in 1968 was holding the city together after the assignations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
A Navy vet and Rhodes Scholar in economics, Lugar is the only senator from Indiana ever elected to four terms.