ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609300074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PROVIDENCE, R.I.
SOURCE: Associated Press
On the campaign trail, President Clinton promised Saturday to deny government loans and payments to parents who shirk child support. He also attacked rival Bob Dole, blaming him for congressional gridlock.
Armed with polls that identify deadbeat parents as a popular election-year target, Clinton declared in his weekly radio address, ``If you owe child support, you shouldn't get support of the federal government.''
The address aired as Clinton visited Rhode Island and Massachusetts, energizing partisan crowds, raising cash and opening an assault on Dole.
Praising the budget agreement reached early Saturday on Capitol Hill, Clinton noted that a series of popular bills - including welfare reform, a minimum wage increase and improvements in health care insurance - passed Congress in the past three months.
Dole resigned from the Senate three months ago.
``Look what happens when you abandon extremism in favor of working together,'' Clinton told a partisan crowd on the lawn in front of the state capitol, American flags snapping at his side.
Aides said the president was taking aim at Dole. ``All you've got to do is look at the calendar,'' campaign spokesman Joe Lockhart said. ``Our contention is a spirit of bipartisanship grew up in Congress after Bob Dole left the Senate.''
The Dole campaign quickly got into the spirit, accusing Clinton of ``hypocrisy and gridlock.''
``Now that Bill Clinton has signed much of Bob Dole's common sense conservative agenda, he's claiming credit for some of the very initiatives he obstructed earlier in the session,'' spokeswoman Christina Martin said.
Although congressional logjams did free up after Dole's departure, the passage of the popular bills likely has more to do with the fact that lawmakers from both parties wanted legislative accomplishments for their re-election campaigns. Even Clinton said the budget agreement may be the result of a more practical reality: ``Maybe they want to go home,'' he said with a chuckle, noting the Congress was adjourning.
The president, who has a virtual lock on Rhode Island and Massachusetts, came here mainly to raise money. Lockhart said Clinton made the trip because, ``If we only went to places where we were behind in the polls or tossups, we wouldn't have many places to go.''
White House polling has shown that cracking down on deadbeat parents is a no-lose political issue, particularly among women. The issue is one of the themes Clinton has plumbed for government initiatives that filled out his election-year ``family values'' portfolio.
Clinton signed an executive order that:
* Told federal agencies to deny government lending, such as loans for small businesses, farms and homes, to people who refuse to pay child support.
* Promised to establish a computer system that can help officials deduct support payments from government consulting and vendor fees, as well as from benefits paid to federal retirees.
``You can't make money off the taxpayers if you are refusing to support your family,'' Clinton said.
His order Saturday requires agencies to review their lending authority and deny loans ``where permissible.''
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB