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

DATE: FRIDAY, August 26, 1994                   TAG: 9408270037
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CLINTON

IN THE MAKING of the president 1992, the economy was the central issue. No wonder, then, that in the first year of his presidency Bill Clinton made passage of an economic-recovery plan his main order of business.

Not one Republican in Congress voted for it. Here, as The Washington Post's David Broder recently reminded readers of his column, is what some of them said:

Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, Kansas: "[It's a] terrible bill. ... It's not good for the economy and it's going to be terrible for small business."

Sen. Kay Hutchinson, Texas: "We have a sick economy, and now we're bleeding it."

House Minority Leader Newt Gingrich, Georgia: "If I were only a Republican partisan, I would hope that every Democrat who voted yes would bear the responsibility for a massive tax increase and the job-killing recession it will lead to."

Well, maybe Gingrich is "only a Republican partisan." Today, a year later (and, again, with acknowledgment to Broder):

Unemployment has dropped to 6 percent, lowest in three and a half years.

Inflation is averaging a low annual rate of 2.5 percent.

The economy is growing at a healthy annual rate of between 3 percent and 4 percent.

Business investment in new plants and equipment is up 13.4 percent from the previous year.

The federal deficit for the fiscal year to end Oct. 31 will be about $223 billion, compared to the $291 billion projection when Clinton took office; next year's projected deficit is $171 billion, compared to the pre-Clinton projection of $284 billion.

To say that the Republicans were wrong about the budget is not to say that Clinton and the Democrats are always right. Indeed, they haven't paid enough attention to deficit-reduction. Nor is it to say that the Clinton plan is solely responsible for the recovering economy. The American economy is too big, too complex to claim any such thing.

But the Clinton plan has helped - for one thing, by helping to reduce interest rates - and it has proved neither terrible, nor economy-bleeding, nor job-killing. As a matter of politics, Republican leaders can't be expected to acknowledge that they were wrong. As a matter of accountability, the American public should know that they were.

by CNB