Ontario, Calif. — Firing back in an election-year debate over the recession, President Bush on Saturday painted Democratic opponents as tax-raisers and pointedly vowed he won't allow his tax cuts to be rolled back. "Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes," he shouted to California workers.
He called for bipartisan unity but deflected talk of compromise on an economic stimulus package, blaming the Democrats for blocking it.
With unemployment at a six-year high of 5.8 percent last month, Bush told a packed high school gym in Portland, Ore.: "If you're unemployed, it's 100 percent, and I'm worried about that."
Bush urged "unanimity and clarity of purpose and resolve" in confronting the recession, just as the nation had demonstrated in backing the war on terrorism. He made taxes the centerpiece of his California and Oregon swing.
Congress left for a recess last month deadlocked over how to stimulate the economy. Bush proposed a blend of corporate tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits; Democrats wanted more for health benefits for the unemployed.
"This economic debate is troubling me," Bush told more than 5,000 small business owners, members of the military and political supporters at a town-hall gathering east of Los Angeles. "I stand here as a proud party man, but let me tell you something, the country is far more important."
One day after Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle fired the opening salvo on the economy in Washington, Bush headed to the West Coast to respond.
Daschle blamed Bush's tax cuts Friday for wiping out budget surpluses, but stopped short of calling for a rollback of Bush's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax reductions that passed last year.
Nonetheless, Bush predicted unnamed political opponents will try to reverse the tax cuts.
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