Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 25, 1993 TAG: 9302250365
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
REMEMBER THE VOODOO
BOB DOLE sounds pretty good saying President Clinton's economic program ought to rely more on spending cuts and less on new taxes.Indeed, that's the way Clinton budget director Leon Panetta wanted it; his goal, balked by congressional leaders, was to cut $2 in spending for every $1 in new taxes.
But Dole, the Senate's Republican leader, ought to be wary of putting too pious a face on his own party. He surely has not forgotten:
That a Republican-controlled Senate voted 96-0 to reject a move by Ronald Reagan to reduce Social Security spending at a time when Reagan was lighting off the deficit rockets.
That Dole himself, rattled by the deficits, pushed a $99-billion tax increase through the Senate a year after Reagan won approval of his huge tax cuts.
That Reagan's budget chief, David Stockman, confessed to cooking the numbers in his budget in order to present a favorable image of "supply-side economics" that he secretly regarded as a sham.
That in order to avoid specifying spending cuts, Stockman inserted a "magic asterisk" into the budget denoting cuts to be made in the sweet bye and bye.
Dole, at heart, is fiscally responsible, but there's no basis for saying the same of his party. Reagan explained that tax cuts would stimulate the economy which would generate more revenues which would balance the budget. This sounded too good to be true, and it was.
When things didn't work out, Reagan blamed big-spending Democrats who controlled Congress but, significantly, did not attack the spending itself.
Neither did George Bush, a convert to "voodoo economics." Bush's loss to Clinton owes much to Republican defectors who savaged him for a deficit-cutting deal with Democrats involving new taxes combined with caps on future spending that remain in place.
With the deficit spiraling upward, the anti-Bush Republicans still wanted to campaign as tax-cutters; they denied Bush deserved credit for slowing the growth of deficits. And he, wringing his hands, said he was just so terribly sorry.
The game goes on. Now Bill Clinton's at bat, promising to get the deficit within bounds down the road if citizens will accept tax increases now and a promissory note for many of his spending cuts.
Deferral of cuts, even if wise in an economy that needs every job that can be saved, is a problem. Congressional Democrats have zero credibility as economizers. But controlling both the White House and Congress, they are now accountable for the deficit and summoned by the president to deal with it. Will they?
The chief obstacle may be public skepticism that the deficit will be harnassed even if Clinton's program is accepted. That doubt is fueled by years of failed efforts, zany schemes, cooked books, trapeze acts, shell games and lame excuses by both parties: It has been accelerated by the elaborate nature of Clinton's program and by his own unformed presidential character.
Who is Bill Clinton? The president campaigned as a bus-riding populist exponent of Main Street values but filled 13 of his 18 Cabinet seats with well-heeled lawyers, substituted middle-class tax hikes for promised cuts and took action first on the agenda of his party's liberal elite. The president is warm, genial and gregarious, but his reputation for straight talk has not been remarked.
For several reasons, however, his message last week added powerfully to the president's stature:
He confronted the deficit, described its wasting effects and forthrightly staked his presidency on a bold program to combat it.
His rhetoric was lean, intense and sharpened by conviction that conveyed a sense of determined leadership.
He addressed citizens as adults. This is new. As Paul Tsongas said, the Clinton he heard the night of Feb. 17 was several cuts above the Clinton who defeated him in the Democratic primaries.
Besides being churlish and whining, the immediate Republican response was to complain about too few spending cuts. They're right.
So was the president when he invited the GOP to put some cuts of their choosing on the table beside his own.
Let them ante up. Soon! Please!
Perry Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star in Norfolk.