Bush Blames Congress for Deadlock on Jobless Benefits : Politics: The President opens still-undeclared ’92 drive, telling compassion for unemployed. White House concern over the weak economy is seen.

President Bush, under fire for his stewardship over a struggling economy, opened his still-undeclared 1992 presidential campaign Thursday with a new attempt to display his compassion for the fate of the unemployed.

Sounding defensive at times at a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner here, Bush insisted that Congress rather than the White House is responsible for the government’s failure to approve an extension of jobless benefits.

Bush’s attempt to shift the blame to Capitol Hill--last month he vetoed a Democratic-backed measure that would have extended assistance to more than 2 million Americans who are out of work--served as the most telling sign to date of White House concern about the political toll of a sickly economy.

“I don’t think there’s anyone, any fair-minded man or woman, who doesn’t sympathize with someone who wants to work and is out of work,” Bush said. He insisted that he wants to “get the checks going” but has had no choice but to reject any “budget-busting” Democratic proposal.

“I challenge Congress tonight: send me one bill that helps those families and also protects the taxpayers,” he said at the dinner, the first official event sponsored by the “Bush--Quayle ‘92” fund-raising committee.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), however, bluntly reiterated the Democratic claim that Bush remains blind to the plight of the jobless. “Not since Herbert Hoover has an American President been so slow to see the needs of Americans, so willing to overlook the hardships of ordinary people,” he said in Washington.

The President traveled here despite learning that a fierce Atlantic storm had left his $2.2-million coastal home in Kennebunkport, Me., battered and broken. He plans to cut short his trip and return to Maine this weekend to inspect severe damage that he said had been “rather devastating to our family.”

But, in a mark of Bush’s determination to wear a more compassionate face, he quickly added that he does not want to “burden” Americans with his own bad news. He noted that his family could more easily bear the cost of the catastrophe than many victims of the Oakland fire and other recent disasters.

“Barbara and I are in a fortunate position that we can bounce back,” Bush told reporters during a morning Oval Office meeting.

The President’s close attention to the economy as he began to raise money for his reelection bid served to underscore the degree to which it has already become the central issue of the presidential race.

The address, a likely test-run for a campaign stump speech, also served as a vehicle for wider criticism of Congress and for a warning against isolationism in foreign policy. He made clear that he intends to challenge head-on those Democrats who criticize the attention he has given to foreign affairs.

“I am going to keep right on standing up to aggression--as we did in Desert Storm,” he said. “And I am going to keep trying to bring peace to the Middle East.”

Bush denounced by name Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and others who called for him to rely on sanctions to drive Iraq from Kuwait. “Thank God I didn’t have to listen to those carpers telling me how to run that war,” he said.

But as he described his “agenda for America,” the economy was first on his list, and he strongly defended his proposal for a reduction in the capital gains tax.

“Let the opposition prattle on about tax breaks for the rich . . . if they will give this capital gains tax cut a chance, because it will create jobs and get Americans back to work again,” he said.

With staunch Bush supporters complaining about the state of the economy--and polls showing growing sentiment that a Democrat would make a better steward--the President has begun to give economic matters almost daily attention.

Bush is not expected to make a formal declaration of his candidacy until early next year. But he struck a fierce and often angry tone during the dinner here in lashing out at Congress and its “old thinking,” and told the audience: “I can’t wait now to roll up my sleeves and become a candidate.”

The event opened a two-day blitz that is the official fund-raising kickoff for the Bush campaign and is expected to bring in more than $2 million in contributions. That sum is more than four times the amount raised by any of his Democratic opponents.

Vice President Dan Quayle also attended the dinner at a Houston hotel, marking only the third time that Bush and Quayle have appeared together outside Washington since they took office. But White House aides noted that the vice president has raised more than $30 million for Republican candidates during low-profile solo appearances around the country.

With his new protestations of concern for the unemployed, both here and at meetings in Washington with Republican leaders, Bush took another step away from an earlier stance which had been almost entirely negative.

At a White House briefing, Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater insisted that since “Day One” Bush had supported the expansion of benefits for the unemployed in the form of a $3-billion pay-for-itself measure sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.).

But senior White House officials told Congress earlier this summer that expanded benefits would not be necessary because the economy was emerging from the recession.

And after vetoing a $5.6-billion Democratic bill that would have given the unemployed as much as 20 additional weeks of jobless benefits, Bush also had threatened to reject a scaled-back Democratic proposal. Only in recent days has he indicated a willingness to compromise.