Bush Urges Voters to Set Term Limits : At Irvine Stump, He Blasts Demos for Budget Woes

As Congress approaches a resolution to the budget negotiations that have strained voters’ patience, President Bush said in a breakfast visit to Orange County this morning that the way to avoid the same problem in the future is to limit the terms of politicians.

“It puts the power back into the hands of the people,” he told an audience in Irvine gathered to raise money for Republican gubernatorial candidate Pete Wilson.

“That is one way to correct the abuse of power and the unbridled influence of an entrenched congressional staff,” he said. “I say it’s an idea whose time has come.”

Like Wilson, Bush called for support of Proposition 140 on the Nov. 6 California ballot. Fueled by public frustration with the budget controversy as well as recent political scandals in Sacramento and Washington, polls indicate Proposition 140 has tapped a well of frustration among the electorate and appears likely to pass.

Bush, a career politician and the son of a U.S. senator, added that the same policy should be applied to members of Congress.

“The 1988 Republican platform supports limiting the terms of members of Congress,” he said. “That was 1988, we’re not just jumping on the bandwagon; that was in our platform.”

Wilson, who was still in Washington to vote on the budget agreement still being negotiated in Congress, did not attend the breakfast in his honor. But he talked to the audience through an amplified telephone.

And like Bush, he praised Orange County as the seat of California’s Republican strength.

“I think a political party, like a nation, should have an elite fighting force,” Wilson said. “Well, in California for Republicans, ours is in Orange County.”

Bush repeatedly blamed the Democratic-controlled Congress for the budget problems facing the nation and said several times that the only solution is to elect more Republicans.

“So my appeal to you is--you in this county who hold so much of the fate of all these statewide candidates in your hands--let’s get out our vote on Nov. 6 and let’s make Pete Wilson the next great Republican governor in the state of California,” Bush said. “Go to work, get out and vote.”

The President was joined at the head table by three other Republican statewide candidates: state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), running for lieutenant governor; Treasurer Thomas Hayes and Matt Fong, nominee for state controller.

Bush was scheduled to attend a luncheon fund-raiser for Wilson in Los Angeles today and then travel to Hawaii tonight. He is scheduled to appear once more for Wilson in San Francisco on Monday before returning to Washington.