Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993 TAG: 9301260485
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE CLINTON RECORD (SO FAR) ON RENEGING
IT IS NOT unusual for politicians, once in office, to reverse or "forget" their positions and fail to deliver on campaign promises.It's more unusual, however, for an elected official to abandon election promises and show so much hypocrisy, before even taking office. Look at President Clinton's record so far:
Haitian immigration: After strongly and repeatedly denouncing the Bush administration's handling of the difficult problem of Haitian refugees, Clinton announced before taking office that he would continue the Bush policy.
Ethics: Clinton's first attorney general-designate, Zoe Baird, admitted that she knowingly broke federal law in hiring illegal aliens and not paying Social Security taxes on their salaries. Is this the kind of high ethics the Clinton administration will adhere to?
Education: The president is all for free choice in schools for your children - as long as you keep them in public schools. But the poor Washington schools, which are good enough for thousands of children, aren't good enough for little Chelsea. And poor and middle-class District of Columbia parents can't get vouchers to assist their kids to sit beside Chelsea at posh Sidwell Friends.
Tax cut: Clinton is back-pedaling from the middle-class tax cut that he talked about frequently in his campaign. Not only has this idea gone out the window, the heavily regressive gasoline tax is being strongly considered.
Budget deficit: Clinton has recanted his earlier pledge to halve the federal deficit in his first term. If he didn't know how bad the figures might be, he shouldn't have made the promise.
Economy: Indications are that Clinton will do little to stimulate the economy during the early days of his administration, despite repeated rhetoric that such stimulation was a top priority.
Of course, he may find that the slow but steady economic improvement over the past few months, which often takes a long time to detect and document, will solve the economic problem without any help from the government - just as Bush had predicted.
It remains to be seen how many more of his campaign pledges and promises Clinton will renounce. Bush kept all of his except the "No new taxes" promise - which he compromised on because he had to deal with a Congress controlled by the opposite party. What will be Clinton's excuse(s)? HUGH S. FULLERTON CHILHOWIE