CAMDEN — Linda Bean continued the Republican assault on Congress Tuesday, telling the Camden Rotary it’s time to throw out those who have made careers out of “pork, pay raises, perks, pensions and power.”

In addition to lining up with President George Bush on his “Clean Out Congress” campaign, the Republican candidate for Maine’s First District joined the president’s call for a balanced-budget amendment, a line-item veto and term limits.

She broke step with Bush, however, on his plan for an across-the-board tax cut, saying tax cuts should be targeted at those who will create jobs and stimulate the nation’s economy.

Bean took numerous swipes at her opponent, incumbent Democrat Tom Andrews, promoting him during her 30-minute address from a mere “liberal” to an “ultra liberal” who has “turned his back on families with his radical, left-wing agenda that gives preferential treatment for homosexuals.”

Bean laid the blame for the county’s stalled economy at the feet of Congress for its, “44-year spending binge, most of it going for welfare and welfare fraud. Congress got carried away creating huge bureaucracies for housing, education and welfare, and now there’s talk of another entitlement for medical insurance, what we used to call socialized medicine.”

For economic models that work, Bean said Congress should look at the 1920s, 1960s and 1980s, “When we had tax cuts and the economy expanded. In the early to mid-1980s, 20 million jobs were created, double-digit inflation was licked and personal income rose. Congress reversed direction after Ronald Reagan left and in 1990 added $200 billion in new taxes that brought the economy to a shuddering halt.”

Bean said that all the taxing and spending has hurt families the most by forcing both parents to work to make ends meet. Using charts that showed the growth in the tax bite from 1948 to today, Bean said that nearly two-thirds of the second income required now to keep a similar standard of living is eaten up by taxes. “No income tax, no social security and fewer regulations, when there was an incentive to produce; many long for those days, but Congress has taken them away, some say forever,” she said.

To aid families, Bean said she supports eliminating penalties for withdrawals from Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) if the money is used for education or the purchase of a first home, tax credits for home-based child care, a tripling of the personal exemption to $6,000 and tax deductions for student loans.

To bring the federal deficit under control by spending reductions, Bean said, every federal expenditure should be scrutinized thoroughly, from the size of Congressional staff to the administration of federal programs.

“It is estimated that $26 billion could be saved in the Department of Health and Human Services alone through administrative and legislative change, without affecting benefits,” Bean said. “I am opposed to across-the-board cuts in programs because it’s too simplistic. Some need to be cut altogether, some are doing a good job, but I don’t see why the elderly taxpayers of Maine should be paying for a $49 million Rock and Roll museum or the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. How many of us will ever get to go?”

If she is elected, Bean said, every federal program will be put to her nine-point test:

Does it serve the nation and not just a special or local interest?

Has it outlived its purpose or failed?

Does it duplicate or contradict another program?

Is it “central planning” for what should be left to local initiatives?

Could it be done better by private charity?

Does it compete with private enterprise?

Is Congress empowering bureaucrats more than the recipients?

Does it de-motivate the private sector from responding to needs?

Could it be postponed until the government is in a better financial position?

“These nine points,” Bean said, “will empower the individual and local government and end this build-up of federal power. We can be free to save, free to invest, free to create new jobs and free to live free again.”

In response to questions from the audience, Bean said she was opposed to an increase in the gasoline tax as a way to promote conservation and reduce oil imports. Such a tax increase, sge said, would hurt small businesses and workers. She said the government should promote more mass transit and “other ways to get people to change their habits.”

Asked if her tax cuts for job-creators were a revisitation of the “trickle-down” economics of the Reagan era, which brought with it a massive increase in the federal deficit, Bean said. Reaganomics has worked. “It put people back to work in the 1980s, so why not try it again? We have to cut taxes and spending. People can’t pay taxes if they’re not working.”

Bean interrupted the question-and-answer period to launch another attack on Andrews, faulting him for not serving on the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee at a time when when Maine’s independent fishermen are threatened by corporate fishing interests and for his “grandstand” vote against the B2 bomber, which cost Maine industries unrelated defense contracts.