‘Nothing will hold us back’

NEW YORK — President Bush last night accepted his party’s nomination and outlined an aggressive domestic agenda for his second term, vowing that “nothing will hold us back.”

In a prime-time nationally televised address from a circular stage emblazoned with the presidential seal, Mr. Bush told the Republican National Convention that his first term was a series of hard-fought successes in both the foreign and domestic arenas, including the war on terror.

He vowed to build on these successes with a second-term domestic agenda that he outlined in greater detail than ever before.

“I am running for president with a clear and positive plan to build a safer world, and a more hopeful America,” he said to thunderous applause. “I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives.”

He announced a flurry of new initiatives in areas like education, job training and health care that might upset conservatives who already resent his expansion of government since 2001.

Although he proposed no new tax cuts, Mr. Bush promised to overhaul the tax code which he called “a complicated mess, filled with special-interest loopholes, saddling our people with more than 6 billion hours of paperwork and headache every year.”

“In a new term, I will lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code,” he said.

“In all these proposals, we seek to provide not just a government program, but a path — a path to greater opportunity, more freedom, and more control over your own life,” he said. “Government must take your side.”

His wealth of detailed proposals included turning areas that have been blighted by the loss of manufacturing and textile jobs into “opportunity zones.”

“In these areas, we’ll provide tax relief and other incentives to attract new business, and improve housing and job training,” he said.

Mr. Bush reiterated his call for tort reform, especially in the area of medical liability, although he did not specifically mention that Mr. Kerry chose a trial lawyer, Sen. John Edwards, as his running mate.

“We must protect small business owners and workers from the explosion of frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across America,” he said, prompting delegates to leap from their seats and cheer.

The speech capped a four-day convention during which the president appeared to draw even or slightly ahead of Sen. John Kerry in a variety of polls.

The Massachusetts Democrat waited less than an hour after its conclusion to re-emerge on the campaign trail in Ohio, where, according to prepared remarks, he repeatedly called the Bush-Cheney team “unfit to lead this nation.”

“The times in which we live and work are changing dramatically,” he said. “Many of our most fundamental systems — the tax code, health coverage, pension plans, worker training — were created for the world of yesterday, not tomorrow.

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