Bush, Kerry diverge over economy

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry has been campaigning hard on the economy, charging President Bush is willing to send jobs overseas -- "outsourcing" -- and that he has presided over the worst job-creation record since the Great Depression.

This year's election pits Mr. Kerry, formerly a fierce defender of free trade who has recently become a fiercer advocate for "fair trade," against a president who has pursued free trade at every turn, including multilateral agreements in the Western Hemisphere and bilateral agreements with nations throughout the world.

It also pits two views of how the economy is performing right now.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Kerry highlights high unemployment rates in major states that are running well above the 5.4 percent national average: 6.7 percent in Michigan, 6.3 percent in Ohio, 7.4 percent in Oregon and 6.1 percent in Illinois.

Mr. Bush counters that his $1.7 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years have spurred an economy battered by the tech-stock collapse, the September 11 terrorist attacks, the corporate-accounting scandal and the Iraq war that has kept the financial markets in turmoil.

His administration points to a string of improving employment statistics, including 1.7 million new jobs since August 2003, and an economy growing at more than 3 percent, as interest rates remain relatively low and inflation is nowhere in sight.

With barely six weeks to go before the election, Mr. Bush will continue to push his optimistic outlook as Mr. Kerry tries to cultivate unrest among the electorate as the two candidates make a final push to sway voters.

The economy "is not as good as Bush says it is, but it's not as bad as Kerry says it is," said Democratic economist Charles L. Schultze, who was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers under President Carter.

"If push comes to shove, I'd say that job growth will probably pick up," said Mr. Schultze, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The two candidates have sharply different agendas on economic policy.