DEMOCRATS OPEN FIRE AS DOLE PREPARES TO LAUNCH TAX-CUT PLAN.

Byline: Associated Press 

Bob Dole fine-tuned the huge tax cut that will crown his economic package, as Democrats prepared extensive counterassaults Friday designed to portray him as a balanced-budget turncoat.

Ahead of Dole's scheduled unveiling of his plan Monday in Chicago, the Clinton re-election campaign and the White House were marshaling quotes from old Dole speeches repudiating ``supply side'' tax cuts and suggesting Dole starts out at least $149 billion in the red.

Those close to Dole's difficult deliberations said Friday that the GOP presidential candidate was close to signing off on a $600 billion six-year tax cut.

Dole reportedly was still torn between an across-the-board tax cut and a repeal of the tax increases of 1990 and 1993, which would have the effect of dropping the top rate to 28 percent from 39.6 percent.

Work on the plan was expected to continue into the weekend.

Several GOP sources said Dole was considering a hybrid - a temporary across-the-board tax cut of 10 percent, coupled to an eventual repeal of the 1990 and 1993 tax hikes.

In a poll conducted June 20-25 by NBC and The Wall Street Journal, 71 percent of registered voters said that if Dole proposes cutting federal income taxes 15 percent across the board, they would view it as a gimmick that wouldn't make them more likely to vote for him. Just 19 percent of voters said such a cut would be a commitment they agree with, one that would make them more likely to vote for Dole.

Dole's plan also was expected to include targeted tax breaks for the middle class, most likely allowing workers to deduct their Social Security taxes from their gross income - a break worth up to roughly $350 a year for a family making about $40,000.

Campaign officials were silent on the progress of the plan, as Dole took the afternoon off to attend the Olympics in Atlanta.

But Democrats were making up for the GOP silence, keeping fax machines humming at news organizations.

They took issue with claims that up to 40 percent of Dole's plan would be financed by additional revenues to the Treasury from economic growth that a tax cut would stimulate.

Dole in the past has repudiated such a ``supply side'' theory, which holds that tax cuts can partially pay for themselves through a swelling economic tide that raises all ships.

``We're prepared to contrast our approach to economics and tax cutting with what it looks like Bob Dole is planning to do,'' said Clinton-Gore campaign spokesman Joe Lockhart. ``From all speculation, Bob Dole looks like he's about to propose tax cuts that he won't be able to pay for and which will balloon the deficit.''

Among some of the old Dole quotes being circulated Friday by the Clinton campaign and the White House:

``Our economy is the strongest it's been in 30 years.'' Dole, speaking to the New Hampshire Legislature on Feb. 13.

``I was never in that (supply side) camp. . . . I'm a traditional Republican who believes that you ought to restrain spending if you're going to cut taxes. I don't think you can just cut taxes alone and get gain without pain.'' Dole, appearing on ``Larry King Live,'' Nov. 4, 1992.