his presidential election is largely about directions.

From 1981 through 1992, the Reagan and Bush conservative administrations'
borrow-and-spend and supply-side tactics produced 12 consecutive budget deficits,
an unprecedented $4.5 trillion national debt, two deep recessions, a stifled middle class
and more than 16 million poor children.All this pain was the price paid to give huge tax cuts,
mostly to the richest Americans, and to build an immense new military machine.

Bill Clinton and Al Gore were elected in 1992 with the promise to change the country's
direction and build a bridge to a more prosperous and secure future.

They succeeded. Their powerful leadership guided a Republican-dominated Congress
into a reduced government, the first balanced budgets in decades, an economic resurgence
that created 22 million new jobs, lower taxes, the lowest unemployment in modern history,
welfare reform and less crime and drug consumption.

Their success was capped with economic projections of more than $4 trillion in surpluses
over the next 10 years.

Vice President Gore, who helped bring us this far, is intent on staying the course and
accelerating our progress. Gifted with keen intelligence, informed with the lessons of
16 years in Congress and eight years as one of the most active vice presidents in American
history, he has given the nation specific plans for expanding our hard-won prosperity.

He proposes to pay down the debt by 2014. With the rest of the available revenues
the vice president would enhance our productivity and security by investing in public
education, health insurance for currently uninsured children and their families,
affordable prescriptions for all our Medicare population, a substantial patients'
bill of rights and a strengthened Social Security system.

His concern for the environment, equal economic treatment for women, a higher minimum
wage and women's choice are all in his agenda. So is his intention to keep our military the
strongest in the world: He proposes twice as much for defense as does George W. Bush.

Overall, the course charted by the vice president will continue the progress. He believes
that we should rely on personal responsibility and our market system. But when the market
is not able to provide what is needed and deserved — like health insurance and prescriptions
— then we should use our collective strength to provide them. Gore believes in "only the
government we need, but all the government we need."

His opponent, on the other hand, seeks to turn the "Ship of State" around, toward the
economic and social retreat of the Reagan and Bush administrations, shouting all the while,
"This way to the future!"

His father, President George Bush, offered us the advice we should accept. It calls on us
to vote for Gore in these words: "If you're going to change horses in midstream, pick one
that's going in the same direction."

Thank you, Mr. President!