Des Moines, Iowa ? Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry offered an education and job stimulation package Saturday that would provide tax credits for anyone who took vocational training or college courses to improve job skills.

“Our economy can turn around, and it will turn around, but we need to put jobs back at the top of the nation’s agenda,” Kerry said. “For most people, a jobless recovery is just a fancy term for recession.”

Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, toured a community college job training site in Waterloo, Iowa, as he spelled out what he would do to support job training and education and invest in high-tech industries likely to create jobs. He put no price tag on the idea.

His proposal includes giving $25 billion to the states in each of two years to help avoid soaring college tuitions that have blocked many from higher education and tax credits for college tuitions and vocational training.

Kerry said the help to the states is needed because a sour economy and deep tax cuts pushed by President Bush have left them with cumulative budget shortfalls of up to $90 billion. Many have responded with deep spending cuts, and many also have had to raise college tuitions to help cover the shortfall.

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Cedar Rapids, Iowa — Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., is seeking to tighten the focus of his presidential campaign on trade, blasting five of his rivals he said were trying to have it both ways.

“All the candidates running for president now are saying the right thing, but where were they when it mattered?” said Gephardt, in remarks prepared for delivery Saturday to union activists. “Where were they when it was time to stand up to the multinational corporations and fight for the American worker?”

While virtually all the Democrats now talk about assuring that free trade agreements include provisions to protect environmental and labor rights, the record doesn’t bear that out, said Gephardt.

Specifically, he said Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement, which lacks those protections. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean supported NAFTA and backed fast-track trade deals that do not allow Congress to modify agreements as well as supporting normalized relations with China.

Kerry, Lieberman and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards also voted for the recent China trade deal, Gephardt said.

“Most disappointing on this issue was Senator Edwards,” said Gephardt. “The Carolinas have been devastated by our current trade policies.”

Gephardt was seeking to rally one of his political bases in taking his trade message to a Teamsters Union hall. That union has endorsed Gephardt, and he is counting heavily on labor’s backing in Iowa’s leadoff precinct caucuses Jan. 19. Roughly one in three who shows up for those caucuses will come from a union household.

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Charleston, W. Va. — When Carol Moseley Braun first ran for the Legislature in Illinois, she was told she didn’t have a chance.

“I got in,” said Braun, who went on to become the first black female U.S. senator in 1992. “The people have responded to me.”

Braun, also a former ambassador to New Zealand, addressed a crowd of about 50 people in Charleston on Saturday.

Braun’s platform includes establishing a single-payer health insurance system, which she said could provide universal coverage and help boost the economy.

“The system is broke and we have to fix it,” Braun said.

Braun also said that while she has been opposed to the war in Iraq, she supports the troops and their efforts to rebuild communities abroad.

Nevertheless, she said, “Now that they’re there, we have to bring our troops home, and we have to do so with honor.”

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Detroit — Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Saturday he supports a two-state solution with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side, but a comprehensive peace plan will only come about through sacrifice and commitment by the leadership on both sides.

An American president brokering such a deal would go a long way toward improving U.S.-Arab relations, the former Vermont governor told about 200 people on the second day of the Arab American Institute’s National Leadership Conference.

Dean said the United States neededto help build economic opportunity in the West Bank, and he said both sides must learn they could be partners in the long and difficult struggle for peace in the region.

“A majority of the people on both sides of the green line want peace. We can only do it if we present a vision, which will demand sacrifice and commitment,” he said.

Dean said the Palestinian leadership would have to decide to abandon violence and dismantle terrorist infrastructure, while Israel should do all it could to alleviate long-standing Palestinian suffering and spur economic development.