Bush To Unveil Second Term Agenda During Convention

CRAWFORD, Texas, Aug 25 (AFP) - After a tumultuous first term in the White House, US President George W. Bush will unveil his policy priorities for an eventual second term at next week's Republican National Convention.
"He'll talk about the clear differences that voters face," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "It'll very much be a forward-looking speech talking about his agenda for America that builds upon his record of results."
Bush is scheduled to speak on September 2, the last day of the convention to be held in New York starting on Monday, and formally accept the party's nomination to run against Democratic Party hopeful Senator John Kerry.
As in 2000, the 58-year-old Bush wants to present himself as a uniter of a nation, which, according to opinion polls, remains split into equal parts along party lines. Among those scheduled to appear at the Republican convention is maverick Democratic Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, who has endorsed Bush for president.
The president's acceptance speech is expected to be a careful balancing act that will include defense of his record as well as new promises.
If Iraq and the war on terror remain on the forefront of the national agenda, domestic issues are likely to dominate his speech because of the decidedly mixed foreign policy results of his first four years in office.
The Bush administration has not managed to extricate itself from the Iraq quagmire and has been accused of failing to foresee the September 11, 2001 attacks that occurred nine months after Bush came to power and left about 3,000 dead in New York and Washington.
Although weapons of mass destruction that served as the chief rationale for launching the war on Iraq have not been found, Bush repeats at one campaign rally after another that "America and the world are safer with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell."
While Democratic nominee Kerry showcased his exploits during the Vietnam War, Bush, who avoided service in Vietnam, will highlight his record as commander-in-chief and promise that he will continue to hunt down suspected terrorists.
On the domestica front, Bush is expected to focus attention on his tax cuts, which have proved a popular vote-getter according to Republican Party internal polls.
However, the budget deficit that is projected to reach nearly 450 billion dollars this year is likely to prevent him from offering new tax cuts of the magnitude of 1.7 trillion dollars he was able to win from Congress during his first term.
Bush is likely to push for making the tax cuts that have already been enacted by Congress during the first term permanent. Under the current statute, they are due to expire next year.
Bush has called "interesting" a proposal to replace the current progressive tax system with a national value added tax.
The president is also likely to urge Congress to move on some of his initiatives currently blocked by the legislature. They include his energy program, which calls for developing more domestic resources, and reform of Social Security to include individual retirement accounts.
The vote for president will take place on November 2 in parallel with congressional elections, in which all the seats in the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be up for grabs.
Republicans currently have an advantage of about 20 seats in the House but only 51 seats in the Senate, compared to 49 held by Democrats.
Bush is expected to remind his audience that the success of his second-term agenda will depend to a large extent on the outcome of the congressional vote.