McGovern on the Issues

Florida is only one test among many to George McGovern. For the South Dakota Senator, every primary is important. Despite consistently poor showings in the polls and indifference from the party powerful, McGovern, soft of voice and blurred of image, has plodded after the Democratic presidential nomination for more than a year. A progress report from TIME Correspondent Jess Cook:

Two weeks ago Iowa's Democratic caucus gave him 23% of the vote, and last week Arizona's awarded him 20% of its delegate slate. Neither outcome was enough to lead the crowded field, but the figures were more than four times the 3% to 5% share of voters the pollsters normally consign to him. Moreover, in both states McGovern was able to score significantly by running his kind of campaign--pushing issues, not personalities, and relying on a carefully worked-out series of proposals, not rhetoric, to attract voters.

The twin showings came together with endorsements by liberal groups in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Florida. But the showing in Arizona encouraged McGovern's supporters because they saw the Arizona campaign as a microcosm of what lies ahead. Senator Edmund Muskie, the big winner with 38% of the vote, exploited the advantage of the front runner and the support of prominent Arizona Democrats; New York Mayor John Lindsay, glamorous and well bankrolled, ran a media miniblitz--he was the only candidate to advertise on TV--and carried 24% of the delegate slate. McGovern hewed to his South Dakota style of street campaigning: introduction, handshake, brief chat--a one-on-one soft sell meant to convey concern if not charisma.

But the core of his campaign was built on telephone contacts and follow-up mailings. Every undecided voter reached by telephone was queried about the issues that concerned him; the next day, position papers in each appropriate area were in the mail. McGovern's backer's believe it was the position papers that carried the vote.

Loopholes. McGovern is undoubtedly ahead among current Democratic contenders in the thoroughness with which he has worked out his positions on some foreign and domestic issues. Over the past year, he has researched and released a series of highly detailed blueprints for attacking the nation's problems. More than any other candidate, he has moved beyond broad goals to specific proposals.

The heart of McGovern's platform is a plan for income redistribution and tax reform and an alternative defense budget. Perhaps no presidential aspirant since Huey Long has proposed so sweeping an economic change as McGovern's tax and income program. The keys: a wide-ranging reform of the tax code, closing all loopholes in higher income brackets, removing personal exemptions for individuals and restoring corporate income taxes to their 1960 high levels by eliminating depreciation allowances and investment tax credits. The scheme, he insists, could raise up to $92 billion in new revenues. New economic stimulus, argues McGovern, would come from increased purchasing power and Government contracting in such areas as pollution control.

Coupled with tax reform is an income-redistribution program that would assure each individual of a minimum income grant of as much as $1,000 per year. Families still below the poverty level after their members totaled their payments would be entitled to keep the entire grant, and the proportion would decrease as income from other sources was raised. Income taxes on the top 20% of federal taxpayers would be higher than under the current system, but welfare would be abolished and the attendant savings to the state and local governments should cause decreases in property taxes. The removal of individual deductions alone would add $64 billion to federal revenues, and the cost of administering the welfare bureaucracy would be virtually eliminated. In all, $29 billion would be shifted from those at the highest income levels to those at the lowest.

McGovern's proposals for decreased defense spending are even more tightly reasoned. In a 56-page report, McGovern outlines specific proposals for troop levels, missile strength --all the way down to the number of bomber wings and ships. The proposed savings would reduce defense spending by almost one-third. The bulk of the decrease would come in equipment and supplies; McGovern would halve the current figure by cutting back on some airplane programs and eliminating Titan missile deployment. The program includes naval modernization and continued development of new missiles and bombers, but the aim is to hold down costs and duplication wherever possible. The U.S. should maintain, argues the proposal, "more nuclear weapons than necessary for deterrence, as insurance and as a hedge against possible buildups on the other side, but certainly we should be able to find the line between conservatism and paranoia." McGovern sidesteps the question of nuclear parity with the Soviet Union and China. Although he estimates that 200 missiles are sufficient to destroy either nation, his budget calls for 1,000 Minuteman missiles alone, with additional nuclear warheads in submarines and bombers.

America's nonnuclear defense elements, McGovern says, can be pared without compromising readiness. The number of active-duty personnel would be reduced from 2,578,453 to 1,735,000, including a 170,000 cut in American forces in Europe. The reductions would be made possible by avoiding "the needless maintenance of active forces against threats which do not and likely never will exist." The U.S., McGovern reasons, would not need land or air forces in Southeast Asia, nor active-duty troops in Korea and Japan. This premise requires a new assessment of America's role in the world and of her friends and enemies. McGovern is convinced that such a reassessment would justify a greatly decreased defense budget.

Although there is room for disagreement with many of McGovern's premises and the conclusions drawn from them, he deserves credit for insisting on substance, for preferring blueprints to blurbs.

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