Bush Appeals for Volunteer Service : Says ‘Successful Life’ Includes Commitment on Behalf of Others

President Bush, seeking support for a budget that freezes overall spending for most domestic programs, urged Americans Friday to become more committed to voluntary efforts and told a student audience: “From now on in America any definition of a successful life must include serving others.”

Concluding a week devoted to explaining in public forums his week-old budget proposal, Bush declared: “Our budget is fair to recipients, fair to taxpayers and fair-minded in its strategy.”

The President, speaking to several thousand students in a field house at Washington University, said he is “convinced that we can help alleviate many national problems by substantially increasing the involvement of young Americans in voluntary service.” Later, he ate lunch with student volunteers and participants in a Special Olympics being staged in St. Louis over the weekend.

Standing under a banner reading “Students Who Care,” Bush told the field-house audience that “from now on in America any definition of a successful life must include serving others--in a child-care center, in the corporate board room, in the Rotary or Little League, or a tutoring program, or a church or synagogue.”

The focus on the role volunteers can play in the United States was a central theme of the inaugural address that Bush delivered four weeks ago. It is one of the President’s answers to critics of his spending proposals during a period of continued effort to trim the federal budget deficit.

“Together, we can show that what matters--in the end--are not possessions: What matters is engaging in (the) high moral principle of serving one another. That’s the story of America that we can write through voluntary service,” Bush said.

The speech reflected what Bush has called “a thousand points of light,” his vision of an America in which “our efforts must reach beyond government, to care about our communities and to assist our neighbors.”

Bush has taken some ribbing over the phrase and he told the students that some have interpreted it “as a thousand pints of light.”

When the joke fell flat, causing not a ripple in the audience in a city known for its breweries, Bush ad libbed: “Surprised you didn’t get that one here in Missouri.”

Throughout the week, the President has made a low-key--and low-visibility--pitch in defense of his budget proposal. His aides profess to be unconcerned about the lack of front-page newspaper and network television coverage given to the President’s other speeches, first in Manchester, N.H., and then in Columbia, S.C.

“Where is it written that you have to have a video presidency?” commented Stephen Studdert, the President’s assistant for special events and initiatives.

On Friday, while focusing on the efforts of volunteers, Bush again avoided spelling out detailed priorities for his $1.16-trillion budget--a spending proposal, he said, that is intended “to complement voluntary efforts to help serve the gentler impulses of mankind.”

His tactic has irked Democratic legislators. They have complained that Bush has lumped $136-billion worth of spending on domestic social programs into a “black box,” telling the House and Senate to freeze the funding at that total without offering them specific levels for individual programs.

Optimistic Face

Putting a more optimistic face than congressional leaders have on the talks that Budget Director Richard G. Darman has been conducting with senior members of Congress, Bush said that the “budget consultations . . . are making progress.”

He said that he has invited congressional leaders to the White House for another round of talks Tuesday, the day before he leaves for a six-day trip to Japan, China and South Korea.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater portrayed the meeting as “a discussion of process” that would offer “an opportunity to assess progress thus far, to go over some of the numbers that have emerged in preliminary sessions.”

And, he told reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush flew here from Washington, Bush “wanted to build momentum while he is out of the country.”

Focusing on the budget’s contributions to education, anti-drug programs, the environment and science, Bush told the students: “Our budget balances social concern with fiscal sanity and leaves power in the hands of the people. It shows that we can have a government with a heart as well as a head.

“When it comes to reducing the deficit, some people say it can’t be done without neglecting our urgent social needs,” Bush said. “It can be done, but it can’t be done with business as usual.”

Bush argued that the budget he unveiled to Congress Feb. 9, which revised the fiscal 1990 proposal that former President Ronald Reagan had submitted a month earlier, “does more . . . for environment, more for the space program, invests almost $2.2 billion for the National Science Foundation--a lot of that going to universities to help basic research.”

Indeed, the new proposal reflects increases over 1989 spending, but the spending in most of the areas Bush cited Friday would remain at the levels Reagan recommended.

After returning to Washington, the President and his wife, Barbara, flew to Camp David, Md., where they were joined for dinner by Britain’s Prince Charles. The prince is in the United States on a private visit to play polo in Florida, a White House official said.

Earlier in the day, Charles met with Vice President Dan Quayle at the official vice presidential residence in Washington.