Clinton Appeals for Voters’ Help on Budget Bill

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton went over lawmakers’ heads Saturday, asking voters to urge Congress to pass a compromise deficit reduction plan that will “turn the country in the right direction.”

Clinton’s appeal came one day after House and Senate negotiators agreed to the broad outlines of a package of tax increases and spending cuts that would reduce the federal budget deficit by almost $500 billion over the next five years.

Clinton promised that the controversial budget plan would cost ordinary working Americans “less than a dime a day” because almost all of the tax increases were aimed at families with incomes of more than $180,000 a year.

The President said the typical American will pay only the 4.3-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase agreed to by the conferees, which works out to an average of about $33 a year.

“I believe that is a modest and fair price to pay for the change we seek and the progress it will bring,” Clinton said before an audience of tourists in the White House Rose Garden. He later repeated that message in his weekly radio address.

Clinton called on voters to lobby for the legislation, which faces an uphill battle in Congress. No Republicans are expected to vote for the bill, and a number of Democrats have defected or remain undecided about whether to support the President on what is seen as the most important test so far of his Administration.

“I need your help,” Clinton said. “Now is the time to make your voices heard. Tell your senators and your representatives if they have the courage to finally bring this deficit down and turn the country in the right direction, create jobs, you would appreciate it, you will support it and you will stand with them.”

The President’s remarks appeared to be a warm-up for a nationally televised address he is planning--probably on Tuesday night--to drum up support for the measure prior to a scheduled House vote Thursday.

“It’s going right down to the wire,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman said. “It probably will be as close as it was last time,” when the House passed its version of the budget bill by six votes, and Vice President Al Gore was forced to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

Even as Clinton spoke Saturday, the budget package came under fresh attack from billionaire industrialist Ross Perot and from Republicans, who charged that Clinton’s plan would disrupt the economy.

Perot, appearing on CNN’s “Evans and Novak” program, suggested that Congress defer action on the President’s budget bill for a month so lawmakers could talk to constituents about the proposal during an August recess.

“If you let that go into law, the American people will be very angry,” Perot said. “It never balances the budget, ever. . . . It doesn’t solve the problem.”

In a formal response to Clinton’s radio address on behalf of the GOP, Washington Sen. Slade Gorton denounced the budget proposal on the grounds that it defers spending cuts for years while imposing hefty new taxes that he said would destroy jobs.

“Now that we’ve seen the fine print, it’s clear that the change he (Clinton) promised is simply the same old tax-and-spend solution we’ve heard so often before,” Gorton said. “In 1990 . . . taxes were raised to cut the deficit in a way almost identical to the Clinton tax plan. What the American people got was a higher deficit, a recession and fewer jobs.”

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) added: “No matter how hard the President tries, he can’t make this tax-heavy package look good.”

Staff aides on Capitol Hill continued Saturday to work out the final details of the bill that will be presented Monday to Senate and House conferees for ratification--the last barrier before separate votes in each chamber.

Although most of the major tax provisions of the bill now appear set, there is a possibility of changing the amount of cuts in Medicare, as well as other items such as larger sums for food stamps and other anti-poverty programs.

“Things are floating around the edges on pretty much all of these things,” said one Senate aide. “The tolerances are very, very narrow. It has so many moving parts that it’s hard to put together.”

While some details remained unfinished, the main outlines of the bill were settled Friday night after two weeks of bargaining between Senate and House teams.

They agreed to roll back to Jan. 1 the effective date for raising the top income tax bracket from 31% to 36%.

This would apply to taxable income--after deductions and exemptions--of $115,000 for single people and $140,000 for couples. In most cases, tax analysts said, that would not affect individuals with gross incomes below $140,000 and couples under $180,000.

Starting next year, retirees whose total income--counting half of their Social Security benefits--exceeds $32,000 for individuals and $40,000 for couples would pay income tax on up to 85% of their Social Security payments.

Bowing to Senate wishes, the conferees limited the gas tax increase to a smaller-than-expected 4.3 cents a gallon, thus depriving negotiators of additional revenues that would have resulted from a 6-cent hike the White House wanted.

The conferees’ decision made it almost inevitable that the total deficit reduction would fall somewhat short of Clinton’s long-touted $500-billion goal, although perhaps by only $10 billion to $15 billion over the five-year span.

On the last weekend before the vote, top Administration officials tried to sell the program in telephone calls to journalists in states where Democratic senators might be swayed to support the budget bill, including Arizona, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Nebraska and Georgia.

At the local level, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) sampled opinions in his northeast Baltimore district, attending a street fair where the mostly white, middle-class crowd offered few complaints about the budget bill.

“The hostilities come from people afraid about gridlock,” said Cardin, who was expected to vote for the plan. “Inaction is what people are worried about.”

John Fogarty, a Baltimore florist shop owner who said he voted for George Bush last year, backed Clinton’s package even though the gas tax increase was going to raise his cost of deliveries.

“It’s going to affect me a whole lot more than most people, but as long as it’s not eaten up by the bureaucratic system that we have, it’s fine with me,” Fogarty said.

At a town hall meeting in Hawthorne, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), advised about 50 constituents to gird themselves for worsening hardships as a result of the Adminstration’s efforts to shrink the deficit.

“These are hard times,” Waters said. “These are painful times.”

Times staff writers Paul Richter and Greg Miller, in Washington, and David Freed, in Los Angeles, contributed to this story.

* PROS AND CONS: Clinton’s plan contains benefits, risks, economists say. A13