Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 17, 1993 TAG: 9302170327
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
FINALLY FOCUSING ON THE ECONOMY
TONIGHT'S STATE-of-the-union address marks the latest of several occasions when Bill Clinton has been told he must deliver the Speech of His Life. It may not be quite that, but the speech will be important in mapping his administration's future. (Notwithstanding all that has transpired since his inaugural, the Clinton administration isn't over quite yet.)The speech will serve, too, as a measure of maturity - not only for a politician who admits that he dislikes conflict and wants to please people, but for a nation sugar-fed for 12 years on the idea that it can have something for nothing.
Clinton must show he's prepared to withstand the wrath of the American Association of Retired Persons, insurance and drug and oil companies, and other special interests lining up to tear apart his economic plan. But he also must be able to persuade middle-class Americans that his plan is fair and necessary for the nation's long-term good. Overcoming suspicions will not be easy. It shouldn't be impossible.
To be sure, Republicans' jeers and a chorus of "I told you so's" will resound if President Clinton, as expected, puts off a tax cut for the middle class and proposes an energy-consumption tax that will hit everyone. Paul Tsongas and Ross Perot, who highlighted the need to cut the federal deficit, did not after all win the election. Critics have a point in noting Clinton's, shall we say, flexibility in adhering to some of his campaign rhetoric.
But if he was elected for anything, surely it was to change the nation's economic direction. And, as Clinton said during the Oct. 19 televised debate, "I am not going to tell you `Read my lips' on anything, because I cannot foresee what emergencies might develop."
The new president may have been a little disingenuous in professing to be shocked by revised forecasts showing a higher federal deficit. But he is right to classify national debt as a challenge requiring an emergency-like response.
"I'm not going to raise taxes on middle-class Americans to pay for my programs," he said during the debates. But it is not absurd to draw a distinction between tax increases for new programs and tax increases for deficit-reduction. Especially since Clinton is calling for major spending cuts.
His announcement last week that he has cut the White House staff by one-fourth - along with his stated desire to increase income taxes on the wealthy - suggests that Clinton understands the political symbolism and moral imperative involved: To sell his package, he must convince Americans that any sacrifice will be shared fairly, along with promised gains.
And speaking of fairness, it should not be forgotten that the economic uncertainties and massive debt framing Clinton's speech before Congress are hardly legacies of his first weeks in office. They are legacies, in part, of faulty notions encouraged by Republican administrations. Notions such as: Greater inequality will ensure increased prosperity. And: Government services can be had while not paying for them.
Americans have seen the greater-inequality part of the GOP deal. They're also starting to realize that, if this generation doesn't pay its tab, future generations will pay much bigger bills. Meantime, the government remains stuck in a fiscal trap set by Reag-anites in 1981: Huge deficits spawned by tax cuts for the rich and higher military spending have stifled domestic initiative. The rejoinder to any new proposal: Sorry, no money.
To escape this trap - to pay for needed public investments, to relegitimize government in the eyes of the middle classes, and to prevent the debt load from squashing future job-creating growth - Clinton has no choice but to attack the deficit. In no way does this contradict his campaign's economic themes of change and renewal.
A higher income-tax rate for the very affluent; an energy tax; extended taxability of Social Security income; a cap on interest deductions for mortgages; deeper cuts in farm subsidies and military spending: These are some of the ideas Clinton is expected to discuss tonight as he finally focuses like a laser beam on the economy. They're also common-sense policies, a small price for helping to restore fiscal sanity. They would have been implemented long ago by a responsible government.
Indeed, one sign of the state of the nation is that political courage should be required to seek such measures. It is on such courage that Clinton, in tonight's speech, should stake his presidency: courage to offend strong lobbies, and courage to expect Americans to show their strength of character.