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ORLANDO, Fla. - As the presidential campaign enters its final month, Sen. John Kerry and President Bush on Saturday offered starkly different views of the economy in a deliberate shift from Iraq to domestic issues.

In an address that aides described as a major domestic policy speech, Kerry declared that on Election Day ''the American Dream is on the ballot'' and told middle-class voters that the Bush administration is in ''a constant state of denial which neglects'' their needs.

The speech laid out no new programs or proposals, but moved his campaign in a direction that Democrats believe plays to the party's strongest suit.

President Bush used a bus tour through the battleground state of Ohio and his weekly radio address to lash out at Kerry's economic policies. In the radio address, Bush credited his tax cuts for helping revive the nation's sagging economy and called on Congress to make them permanent. He accused Kerry of being a consistent impediment to federal tax cuts.

''When I proposed tax relief for working families in 2001 and 2003, Sen. Kerry and other Democratic leaders voted against it,'' Bush said in his address. ''In fact, Sen. Kerry has voted consistently against marriage penalty relief, against increasing the child tax credit, and against expanding the 10-percent bracket.''

Campaign aides for Kerry believe domestic policy issues work to the Democrat's advantage by attracting moderate and independent voters and shoring up his base. By contrast, they say, Bush has to run a two-front campaign: appealing to his supporters with such socially conservative issues as opposition to gay marriage while attracting moderates with a rosy economic message.

The shift to domestic policy issues also puts both campaigns on track for the two remaining presidential debates. At next Friday's debate in St. Louis, the candidates are expected to face a broader array of questions from voters who are either undecided or uncertain about their vote.

During the day, Kerry painted a bleak picture of the U.S. economy and blamed the Bush administration for failing to sustain the surpluses and economic good times of the 1990s. Still, some of the policies he targeted, such as tax advantages for corporations with overseas operations, are not Bush's and have been in place for years.

He accused the administration of putting the interests of corporations and the rich ahead of middle-class Americans and he outlined his proposals for increasing taxes for wealthy Americans to Clinton-era levels and for expanding health care, increasing spending on education and providing job incentives for corporations.

''Time and time again, he made the same choice: to use the power of the presidency to give more and more to those with the most,'' Kerry said.

Kerry asserted that new jobs are not paying as well as the jobs that have been lost during the economic downturn, an assertion that some economists dispute. He cited the more defensible statistic that inflation-adjusted income for the median household fell by $1,535 in Bush's first three years, though that number does not reflect economic improvements this year and does not include the impact of Bush's tax cuts.

For his part, Bush chided his opponent for offering a spate of new programs that will cost taxpayers dearly.

''Now Sen. Kerry and the Democrat leaders are proposing a lot of new federal spending, and the only way to pay all their promises is to raise taxes on working families,'' Bush said.

Bush echoed that theme in campaign stops in Ohio. At all the stops, Bush extolled his vision of an ''ownership society'' in which more Americans will own their homes, have their own private Social Security-like retirement and health accounts, and run their own businesses with reduced federal government restrictions.

Bush said a Kerry presidency could not achieve those ideals largely because Kerry would raise taxes and expand the role of the federal government in people's lives.

''Sen. Kerry has spent almost 20 years in the federal government and he's concluded that it just isn't big enough,'' Bush told the National Association of Home Builders convention in Columbus.

Kerry has proposed reversing the Bush tax increases for people earning more than $200,000 a year to pay for his proposals. Bush said that would still leave a funding gap that Kerry would have to fill by raising taxes on middle-class Americans and on more than 900,000 small-business owners.