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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 12, 1993                   TAG: 9305120348
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

REPUBLICANS SHOULD STICK TO THEIR GUNS

Candidate Clinton made many promises that appealed to voters of my age and his - reduce the deficit; cut middle-income taxes, the government payroll and lobbyists' influence, among others. Most promises have been discarded by him. Where is the media outcry as when Bush broke his promise of "no new taxes"?

Clinton did not learn from Reagan's June 1981 error nor from Congress' habitual response. Almost daily, his appointed subordinates propose new taxes, including the grossly regressive value-added tax on top of an energy tax and increased middle-income taxes. Clinton says we should save more. Save more with less in the paycheck and value-added price increases?

Other subordinates propose new spending programs that mean expanding the payroll and bureaucracy. Medicare is losing billions to fraud. Can nationalized medicine do any better? No, not with Congress and bureaucrats running the show.

Congress passed Clinton's $1.5 trillion budget outline, but Congress pays no attention to that as they approve spending bills. The public, including Perot supporters, pay attention, but does Clinton?

As to the filibuster, Republicans have belatedly found the weapon to help Clinton keep his promises. As a minority party in the House, they failed to limit the "dead-on-arrival" response to Reagan's budget. Republicans delayed the Democrats' spending proposals, resulting in threatened government shutdown, then permitted extensions of current spending. Wrong! I hope they stick to their guns this time.

Clinton has some good ideas, but they will cost money. Where are the cuts to pay for them? Congress passed such a law but blissfully ignores it while exempting themselves from other major laws.

A prominent Midwest senator said, "A billion here and a billion there and soon we will be talking real money." They now speak in trillions, as in $1.5 trillion added to the debt in the next four years. Pity our poor grandchildren.

If the interest on the debt at today's low interest exceeds $300 billion, then if rates should revert to where they were 12 years ago, interest alone would approach $1 trillion. Talk about real money? Wow. Go Republicans. GEORGE F. SNYDER VINTON