ustxtxb_obs_1983_12_23_50_00011-00000_000.pdf

has advanced in the House of Representatives that are jobs programs. There was a great amount of good accomplished in the New Deal, but those aren’t precisely the programs that have been advanced. We had a very modest jobs program that was passed earlier this year initially with the objection and finally with the acquiesence of the Reagan administration and additional programs have been proposed in Congress since then. I think that our basic economic philosophy in this country ought to be jobs first. That was the concept behind the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment bill. As you know Bob voted against that measure and against, well, maybe it’s better to talk about what he voted for. He voted for only five of 21 key, job-creating measures that were evaluated by COPE [the AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education]. I think that the focus ought to be on jobs now, but over the longer run, I think you need a much broader, national manpower policy that focuses on job training, job retraining, so that you accomplish in a better way the matching of people with new kinds of jobs in which they can be competitive. I don’t view high tech, for example, as the solution to all of our national economic woes, but I think there are jobs that are going to exist there that we need to have the basic public education as well as the specific job training for people to be able to fill. What about a tax bill? What’s your view of Reagan’s tax bill and what would you propose or support? I think that we do need to address the size of the federal deficit. It does pose a danger as far as economic recovery. I do not agree with Treasury Secretary Regan that there’s no correlation between the size of that deficit and interest rates and chances for a full-fledged recovery. As far as taxes in general, I think the Reagan administration produced one of the most unfair tax cuts that produced very little benefit to the ordinary American in a working family or to the ordinary small business person in this country. And I think we need to review those cuts. There are some changes that need to be made in terms of both equity and in terms of additional revenues that can be produced to address that budget deficit. I’ve heard discussion, of course, of a flat tax. I want to be sure that any changes in the tax code that are made do not again come in the name of benefiting some group and, in fact, mean less equity to the American taxpayer. I think that there might be some merit in applying the sunset concept to preferences and loop holes in the tax code so that we get automatic review of those preferences in the tax code. And, again, I view the whole question of tax reform as a very broad priority that should be addressed in Congress in 1985. So you will be pushing for some kind of sunset concept in Congress. On the tax cut. I will push for some kind of concept of sunset applied to federal programs in Congress. There was legislation offered and supported by Common Cause several sessions ago. After some changes, I think the departure of several senators from Congress, the banner was never really picked up. I’d like to advance it as far as programs, but I also would like to see it advanced as far as preferences and loopholes and tax cuts. In the Observer interview we ran in March [TO, 3/11/83], you said you only were going to run if the campaign were winnable. Right. Do you still think it’s winnable? We’re winning. I think that’s the number one distinction between our campaign and the other campaigns. You know some dramatic things have happened since that interview in the spring. Number one is that John Tower is no longer in this race, and number two is that Phil Gramm is. What we have now is this great contrast in the Republican primary between the far right and the not-so-right. You have Ron Paul already running television advertising. In order to win that primary, Phil Gramm is going to have to appeal to switch hitters like himself, who have come over and messed up the Democrats election process in the spring, but who normally vote, particularly in the national races, for Republicans. Those are people that would probably be Krueger supporters if they were here because they, know I’ve been a Democratic loyalist. We’re going to have the most progressive Democratic primary that we’ve ever had in the state, and that is a primary in which I will most likely be in a runoff with one of the other people. And I’m trying to lay down a broad enough campaign that I not only win that runoff but then I win the fall election. I believe we’re doing that, and I’m very pleased with the progress of our campaign. Is there anything tangible you can tell me about why you think you’re winning . . . in terms of money or Well, yes, let me talk first about the results of a poll that was taken several weeks ago by the Dallas News of the members of the State Democratic Exec utive Committee and of Democratic National Committee members in Texas, with which you’re familiar, showing at that early date I was tied with Krueger at 23 each, with 4 for Hance, and 16 undecided. I think that’s a good indication of how we’re coming along. I would point also to the success that we have had in raising funds. We have raised now nearly $600,000 in funds. We are running a lean campaign staff. We are supplementing that staff with a number of full-time volunteers. We are setting up an organization throughout this state. We are budgeting so that we will have the money available to make our media budget next year. I think maybe even a better indication is the number of people around the state who have become involved with our campaign. And to give you an example of that: when I went to see Dr. Ramiro Casso last spring, one of the founders of the Good Government League in McAllen, an area in the Valley which Bob since he has no natural geographic base of his own has attempted to claim as his own. Dr. Casso told me that Bob had stayed at his home in McAllen, that he’d been with him the night that he’d lost in ’78, and that he had to stay with him this campaign. A couple of weeks ago I received a letter that Dr. Casso sent to Bob, that I didn’t solicit, which came as a very pleasant surprise, saying basically that principle was going to have to take precedence over friendship. And I think that more and more people in this state, as they really reflect on the fact that we are winning the race, that we can win it, are beginning to say, “Not only can he win it, he ought to win it. He is the kind of person that we want to be our senator.” And they’re reassessing even early commitments that they made in this race, based on the participation in the last election, and they’re coming around to our side. In that interview you also talked about setting up a coalition of minorities that would make a majority. Right. Is that still your working premise? I think that’s what happened in the elections last year that got Democrats elected who were progressive in their orientation last spring and again in the fall. And I think we are accomplishing that. We’re doing things like having [state] Representative Jesse Oliver serve as our Dallas coordinator, not because he is a minority but because he has that capacity to work with all of the various minorities in Dallas County, whether they are small business people or neighborhood workers, who’ve been involved on neighborhood issues in East Dallas, or those people who are genuine THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11