Bush Blames Huge Deficit on Democrats : More Republicans Needed in Congress, He Tells Fund-Raiser

President Bush lashed out today at the Democrats, saying their “stranglehold on Congress” is to blame for the skyrocketing deficit and “government by gridlock in Washington.”

“Twenty-nine out of the last 35 years of Democrat control is long enough. We must have more Republicans in Congress,” Bush said at a $100-a-plate fund-raising breakfast for GOP Senate candidate Allen Kolstad, Montana’s lieutenant governor, who is trying to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Baucus.

Bush reiterated his promise to negotiate a budget agreement “without preconditions” and said “we are getting some good cooperation with the leadership on the Democratic side of the aisle” in those talks.

He devoted most of the speech to a strident attack on the opposition, which controls the Senate by a 55-45 margin and the House by 257 to 176. Bush is hoping to wrest back control of the Senate for the GOP in this fall’s 34 Senate races.

“With the Democrats now in the control of the United States Congress, both houses, we’re facing government by gridlock in Washington, with spending skyrocketing out of control, good legislation thrown aside for pork-barrel programs and a budget deficit looming over our children’s children,” Bush said.

“While the Republican Party is using everything we’ve got to build a strong, competitive America, the Democratic stranglehold on the United States Congress has finally taken its toll,” he said.

“Enough is enough. We must end this ‘deficits don’t matter’ mentality,” Bush said. “I do not want to preside over these god-awful deficits that are saddling these young people here with billions in debt.”

He attacked Congress for not passing his educational excellence act and his version of child care legislation, and blasted it for adding $3.5 billion to his request for $800 million in emergency aid for Panama and Nicaragua last spring.

It took 108 days to win passage of the bill, Bush said, a delay that “jeopardized the hard-won freedom of the brave people of Nicaragua and Panama. That’s more than a difference between parties. In my view that was a disgrace.”

Later, at an anti-drug rally in Daylis Stadium, Bush criticized Congress for not passing his anti-crime package.

Standing in front of a huge banner with a map of Montana and the legend, “Don’t Let Drugs Cloud the Big Sky,” Bush declared: “It’s time for Congress to act. Our children, our communities and our cops have waited long enough.”

Bush later flew to Cheyenne, Wyo., to attend a Frontier Days parade and rally, inspect the nation’s only squadron of 50 MX missiles in their silos at Warren Air Force Base and get in a quick fishing trip to the Middle Crow Creek Fishing Area before heading back to Washington.

Asked why Bush was going out of his way to inspect the newest nuclear missile in the U.S. arsenal at a time of reduced East-West tensions, spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the president wanted to underscore “the need to maintain a strong defense during changing times.”

Soviet missiles are still “aimed at us. Our relations are changing, but both countries have millions of men under arms,” Fitzwater said aboard Air Force One. “We can’t let down our guard.”