Today’s Drug Speech Key Part of Bush Agenda

Practically from the beginning, the White House has viewed today’s presidential speech on drugs as one of the highlights of George Bush’s first year in office.

As long ago as April, top Administration officials devised a three-pronged political strategy for the rest of the year: a series of speeches on foreign policy; then, a Clean Air Act proposal, and, finally, a nationally televised speech--the first such prime-time address of his presidency--on how to combat “the scourge” of illegal drugs.

The speech is scheduled for 6 p.m. PDT and will be broadcast live by the major television networks.

Bickering Likely

Given the nation’s intense interest in the drug problem, the speech is likely to set off partisan bickering over whether Bush is presenting truly new ideas or is packaging proposals that have already been offered by Democrats or are already being implemented.

And, more than that, the big question is likely to be over how to pay the bill for the drug war.

Over the long term, the President risks letting the drug issue turn into a major liability. After all, in his inaugural address, he pledged that “this scourge will stop,” and it is far from certain that he, or any President, has the power to fulfill that promise. Presidents have been waging war on drugs for decades, and, so far, drugs have won.

And, after years of drug fighting, the field is largely barren of new ideas. Bush’s plan, the details of which have been widely leaked by Administration officials, consists mostly of renewed efforts to do things that already are being done, shifting some emphasis, providing some additional money and hoping that better coordination among existing federal programs will improve the effort overall.

The main hope is that a changing public attitude--rising intolerance toward casual drug use--coupled with the general aging of the population, will reduce demand for drugs sufficiently to put a noticeable dent in drug trafficking. If that does not happen, Bush could see his bold promise backfire.

But White House aides are content to let the long term take care of itself. For now, they feel, the public wants to know that the President is taking this issue seriously. For that purpose, Colombia’s recent crackdown on its drug cartels, which has focused public attention even more on the drug issue, has placed Bush in a politically advantageous position.

Democrats Left in Dilemma

That leaves Bush’s Democratic opponents in a dilemma. Democratic strategists fear that, if they merely acquiesce in Bush’s proposals, they could allow the White House once again to seize the initiative on a major policy issue. But, if they criticize Bush too much, they risk White House charges of “politicizing” the issue.

“A President can always, always control whatever issue there is if the President takes it seriously,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who will deliver the Democratic response to Bush’s speech tonight. Biden’s committee plans to begin hearings on Bush’s plan Thursday.

Many Democratic leaders are angry that Bush seems likely to be able to claim credit for initiatives that the Democrats feel they began last year when Congress forced President Ronald Reagan to accept legislation establishing a federal “drug czar” and ordered that the White House draft a comprehensive anti-drug strategy by today. Now, Bush has taken that legislation and used it as a springboard for a major initiative of his own.

Both parties are eager for success in fighting the drug problem, particularly in view of its social cost, largely in urban areas. But both parties want to be recognized for what they accomplish, and neither can afford to be seen as negative or obstructionist, strategists say.

Want Bush to Succeed

Democrats do not want Bush to be able to take full credit, but they want his efforts to succeed. Otherwise, noted one key Democratic senator who asked not to be named, angry voters might well turn against officeholders of both parties.

“It’s just like inflation,” the Senate Democrat said. “They’ll take it out on whoever’s there.”

The conflict in Colombia has only aggravated the predicament of Bush’s opponents. The Democrats’ function of responding to the President “has been made much more difficult by what’s happening in Colombia, because it gives Bush the ability to make grand gestures,” a strategist for the Democratic congressional leadership said.

Until recently, Democrats and Republicans in Congress had maintained an uneasy peace on questions of drug policy, with both sides agreeing to withhold hostile comments until drug czar William J. Bennett completed the proposals that Bush will announce tonight.

But there has been growing apprehension on each side that the other might try to seize the issue for political advantage.

Politicization Angers Democrats

For example, Bennett included Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater among those with whom he consulted about the details of the plan. That angered Democrats, who thought such overt politicization of the issue violated the bipartisan truce.

By late July, a number of furious Senate Democrats were urging Biden, the party’s leading expert on the drug problem, to release his own proposed anti-drug strategy in advance of the Administration plan. “They were mad as hell that they were being used,” one source said.

When Bennett got word of the Democratic pressure, he, too, betrayed concern. In private meetings and telephone conversations with Biden, he asked frequently: “You aren’t going to release your plan, are you?” according to sources familiar with the exchange.

Only with the help of Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) was Biden able to hold off demands of his colleagues and fulfill his pledge to Bennett that the Administration could have first crack at the issue.

Biden’s own plan differs from Bennett’s in large part in the relative amounts to spend on measures to combat drug demand versus measures to combat supply. Drug treatment centers are a major concern for largely Democratic constituencies in large cities. They are of lower priority for the GOP’s more suburban voters.

Biden argues that “there ought to be roughly a 50-50 split” between measures aimed at reducing the demand for drugs and those aimed at restricting their supply. By contrast, the Administration plan is weighted 70% toward reducing supply.

But the real argument over Bush’s plan is likely to be the same one that is generated by virtually all initiatives in these days of tight federal budgets: Where’s the money?

Few Funds for New Programs

The budget argument hits the central weakness of Bush’s approach: His determination to keep federal spending down leaves him very little room to develop programs to meet new national needs. The Democrats, by arguing that Bush has good ideas but is not backing them up with funds, hope that they will be able to criticize the President without appearing uncooperative.

The criticism has already begun, even in advance of Bush’s speech. On a recent “Face the Nation” show, for example, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) told Bennett that “this strategy is meaningless without real dollars.”

Rangel complained that the President was setting goals and then leaving it to Congress to find the funds. “The President must show leadership,” Rangel said, “or it’s a cruel hoax.”

Unfortunately for the Democrats, however, this kind of criticism has failed in the past, in part because Democrats have done no better than Bush in finding ways to pay for the programs they support. They have scored few political points, for example, by noting that Bush has proposed no way to finance his ambitious call for a space mission to Mars.

Administration officials argue that, in fact, they are indeed dedicating new money to the drug fight. Simultaneously, however, they suggest that money should not, after all, be the major test of whether Bush’s plan is sincere.

Coordination Is Key to Bush Plan

“If folks are going to focus on the price tag, they are missing the boat,” White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu told reporters here recently. The key to Bush’s program, he said, would be “coordination of the agencies” to “make sure the funds are well spent.”

Bush’s aides can point to history to bolster their suggestion that, if money alone could end the drug trade, the fight would have been won long ago.

In 1970, for example, President Richard M. Nixon, alarmed about the spread of heroin addiction out of the nation’s ghettos and into the suburbs, announced a major anti-drug drive that included an extra $1 million to Mexico for border interdiction and $12.4 million for a new campaign of drug education.

By 1981, federal anti-drug efforts had reached $800 million. And, in 1986, when President and Nancy Reagan jointly announced their “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign, the President called for increasing the anti-drug budget to $3 billion.

Amount of New Spending Questioned

Bush’s new package will cost about $7.8 billion, Administration officials say. How much of that will actually be increased spending remains a matter of considerable debate. Administration officials said the total would be about $2 billion more than is currently being spent.

But critics say Administration officials are playing games with numbers. Only the additional aid to drug-producing countries in South America, $260 million, represents a real budgetary increase, they say.

For example, one of the single biggest items in the Administration’s plan is a call for a massive increase in prison construction. That is something Bush proposed months ago, in May, when he announced his anti-crime package. Now, critics say, he is trying to count the money twice.

Staff writer William J. Eaton and researcher Aleta Embrey contributed to this story.