WASHINGTON — Rep. Richard A. Gephardt on Tuesday assailed President Bush's energy policy, saying it has undermined the fight against terrorism, while Sen. John Edwards proposed a series of tax breaks to help middle-class families accumulate wealth.
The two Democratic presidential hopefuls broadened their platforms in separate policy speeches.
Campaigning in California's Silicon Valley, Gephardt said the country's dependence on foreign oil not only has hurt the economy and degraded the environment, but also helped underwrite terrorists linked to Saudi Arabia, the largest supplier of oil to the United States.
In a speech bristling with harsh rhetoric, Gephardt of Missouri said, "Oil profits from Saudi oil families literally helped to fund the ungodly attacks on Sept. 11. Is that where we want to send our hard-earned cash?"
Edwards expanded on a central theme of his campaign, saying Bush's tax agenda favored Americans who derive income from investments over the vast majority who primarily support their families through wages.
He said he would seek the repeal of a series of tax cuts for upper-income earners -- particularly the recent measure that reduced taxes on dividends and capital gains -- to fund tax breaks designed to help boost the financial assets of middle-class families.
"I believe America should value work," the North Carolina senator said in a speech at Georgetown University. "[Bush] values wealth."
The two candidates laid out their policies as a handful of rivals in the nine-person Democratic field courted party moderates at a meeting in Washington of the New Democratic Network.
In the most substantive remarks at that gathering, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut said that as president he would work to reduce the poverty rate by a third during the next decade by increasing the minimum wage, enlarging the tax credit for working-poor families, increasing access to child care and expanding Individual Development Accounts, under which the government matches savings for low-income families.
"The scandal of poverty ... must now be met with the full strength of our moral authority, our material wealth and our creative ideas," Lieberman said.
Gephardt offered his energy plan in a speech in Sunnyvale before an audience of high-tech executives. He called for a combination of tax incentives and increased research funding to help end the nation's "crippling dependence on Saudi and Persian Gulf oil."
