Citing budget figures, promising tax breaks and speculating about the future of government spending, candidates are focusing on money.
"When the economy improves it makes other endeavors more likely to succeed," President Clinton said in a speech at Eastern Michigan University yesterday.
Officials on both sides are pointing to the history books for responses to proposals by the two presidential candidates.
Republicans refuse to credit Clinton for a healthy economy and instead cite states where GOP governors have implemented plans similar to Dole's 15-percent across-the-board tax cut. They dismiss Clinton's plans for an increased gas tax and a $500 per-child tax credit as more of the same "big government."
"We have in power an administration that believes in the status quo," said Republican vice-presidential nominee Jack Kemp, at an economic summit sponsored by the Republican Governors Association in Detroit on Oct. 21.
Democrats liken the Republican plan to the "Reaganomics" of the 1980s, a decade that saw the greatest federal deficit growth.
However, experts say Clinton may have won the economy debate without saying a word.
"(The election is) basically just a referendum on how well the economy is going," said University political science Prof. John Kingdon.
A healthy economy was a built-in advantage for the Clinton/Gore campaign, University communication studies Prof. Michael Traugott said.
"What's happening is we are seeing an overall strengthening of the economy," said U.S. Rep. Lynn Rivers (D-Ann Arbor).
Clinton is enjoying the unsolicited praise that President George Bush missed out on in his bid for re-election, said University economics Prof. George Johnson.
While Rivers said she supports Clinton's economic policies, she criticized analysis that holds officials responsible for economic trends beyond their control.
"The argument that everything that goes wrong is his fault and everything that goes right is to his credit is just silly," she said.
Along with proposals for block grants and entitlement revamps, Republicans shift praise and responsibility for the economy to the states. Michigan Gov. John Engler's economic program is considered a test model for Dole's programs in GOP circles.
"We've done these things at the state level and we know they work," Engler said at the summit.
Dole and Kemp met with business leaders and Republican governors from across the country who claim their states' economies have flourished under economic plans similar to Dole's.
Democrats strike back, however, and claim victory in an overall national economic revival led by Clinton and his Democratic allies in Congress.
"If John Engler were solely and even mostly responsible for the economy doing well, then the economies of the states of which John Engler is not governor wouldn't be doing well," Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer said.
Reduced taxes, reduced regulations for businesses and reduced authority of the federal government puts more power in the hands of the people, GOP governors said at their economic summit. Republicans have said a 15-percent across-the-board tax cut and $500-per-child tax break could stimulate the economy, allow more mothers to stay home with their children, and increase the accessiblity of higher education.
"We've got to give men and women the choice to go to work, and not force them to go to work to pay the taxes," Kemp said at the summit.
Shifting programs from entitlements to block grants to the states will help to trim the budget, Dole and his supporters assert. The Welfare Reform Act, which Clinton signed this summer, is the first prominent entitlement to be allocated to be moved under state control.
National standards could suffer, however because state governments don't always have adequate funding or perspective to deal with the extra responsibility, Rivers said.
While Democrats claim the plan will increase the deficit and require cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, some experts say it sounds too good for voters to believe.
Dole's plan is "not credible to large sectors of the population because of their experience in the early eighties," Traugott said.
"There are economists who do this for a living who say ... this is just pie in the sky - it can't be done," Rivers said.
In raw numbers and budgets, most experts agree it doesn't add up. But increased revenues will make up the difference, Republicans say.
"What happens when you have a tax cut is tax revenues actually increase," said GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ronna Romney. "The key to everything is making sure that spending is kept under control."
Romney said her own plan, which varies slightly from the Dole plan, requires that the gross domestic product expand at the same rate of governement spending. This would guarantee the ability to balance the budget and cut taxes, she said.