Du Pont Downplays Deficits

Republican presidential candidate Pete du Pont said yesterday at the Kennedy School that the American people have overestimated the importance of the budget deficit and that maintaining low inflation is his top economic priority.

Du Pont, who made his remarks in the course of an hour-long televised program hosted by Marvin Kalb, the director of the Barone Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy, said that the recent Wall Street crash had nothing to do with the long-term economic prosperity of the U.S.

Yesterday's du Pont interview was the second in a 12-week series of programs moderated by Kalb scheduled to run live on WGBH-Boston and other public television stations around the country.

"We haven't got a crisis, we've got a challenge," said du Pont, who served as governor of Delaware for two terms. "America is not falling apart--we have the best performing economy of the free nations of the world."

He denied the results of a recent USA Today poll that found a majority of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, believe the budget deficit is the single most pressing issue. "That is status quo thinking. [The result of the poll] is just not correct," du Pont said.

The Republican contender said that President Reagan made a "tactical and substantive" error two weeks ago when he said he would consider accepting a Congressional plan to raise taxes.

"When you give a legislature the eye of the needle, they'll drive an 18-wheeler through it," du Pont said, adding that he thought Congress would pass amassive tax increase.

If he were elected president, Du Pont said hiseconomic priorities would be to maintain lowinflation, second to lower taxes and finally toreduce budget deficits. "I wouldn't trade $23billion off the budget deficit for 10 percentunemployment," he said.

But Du Pont said that his main campaignconcerns are education and drug enforcement. The1963 graduate of Harvard Law School has proposed asystem of national education vouchers which wouldprovide a certain amount of education money foreach child.

Du Pont also said he favors mandatory drugtesting for high school seniors, which he saidwould not infringe on their constitutional rights.He said that Reagan's latest Supreme Courtnominee, Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, was right towithdraw his nomination in the wake of revelationsthat he had used marijuana several times in the1960s and 1970s.

"I think that's a valid reason not to offer[Ginsburg] to the United States Senate for a seaton the Supreme Court," du Pont said.

Kalb next Sunday will interview Republicanpresidential candidate Alexander Haig, formerSecretary of State and commander-in-chief of NATO.The series is being co-sponsored by the BaroneCenter, the Institute of Politics and the New YorkStock Exchange Foundation