
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 25, 1993                   TAG: 9304230460
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RETREATS

THE REJECTION of President Clinton's "jobs-stimulus" package last week in itself isn't such a worrisome thing. The bill was flawed. And though he lost his proposal, at least he fought for it.

Of greater concern, in the first few months of his presidency, have been instances where Clinton has seemed to take a stand but then backed away - caving in to special interests.

A prominent example was Clinton's proposal to hike fees for federal grazing lands and other public resources. "A brand new era in land management," Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt called it.

For a long time, the government's cut-rate fees for grazing land, waterways, irrigation water and mining royalties have amounted to taxpayer subsidies of private businesses. The Economist magazine has aptly described the Western beneficiaries of these subsidies as "cowboy socialists."

But Rocky Mountain Democrats - typical of self-styled deficit cutters who attack their neighbor's free lunch while insisting their own freebies are good for the economy - got to Clinton. They threatened to oppose any budget that included the fee increases. Clinton retreated.

As he did on his proposal to eliminate the federal mohair subsidy. It lavishes $100 million a year on 2,000 generally well-off farmers, many of them millionaires. Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, who opposes "pork barrel" for cities, vigorously defended the mohair program. Clinton backed off.

As he did on his broad-based energy-tax proposal, with breaks to ethanol producers in the Midwest and home-heating-oil consumers in New England.

There are other examples, trivial in themselves. But they're dangerous if they foster an impression that the Clinton administration can be rolled.

In June 1981, recalls Ronald Reagan's budget director David Stockman, the Reagan administration went along with a request from Rep. Kent Hance, D-Texas, for a "tiny" $2,500 tax credit for oilmen. Says Stockman, when Congress and the special interests realized Hance had "got his" from Reagan, a trillion-dollar bidding war was triggered. Today's deficits and debts are part of that legacy.

Politics, including successful politics, is about compromise. But the new administration must take care not to send out the message: Clinton caves.

by CNB