Bush Hits the Road to Sell Tax-Cut Plan : Economy: The President warns against ‘sweet-sounding quick fixes.’ Democrats vow to act on package before March 20 deadline.

President Bush, beginning the campaign to sell his election-year program of tax cuts and optimism, Thursday decried “sweet-sounding quick fixes” for healing the economy and told a business audience: “This is no time for gloom and doom.”

Speaking to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce before flying to New York for a U.N. Security Council summit conference today, Bush said that three words would separate his plan from any competing proposals: “It will work.”

But the President’s reception was lukewarm at best; his 26-minute luncheon address was interrupted four times by applause.

The business executives invited to the speech by the Chamber of Commerce are the kinds of people the White House expects to be the bedrock of Bush support during the 1992 election campaign.

The President was “preaching to the choir,” said Charles Greene, executive director of public affairs at the Bell Co. of Pennsylvania. But Greene said that he remained troubled after the speech, wondering: How are “people of lesser means . . . going to benefit” from Bush’s plan?

Outside the Philadelphia hotel where Bush spoke, scores of demonstrators gathered carrying signs that read “Where’s the Jobs?” and “Sayonara, George.” About 200 jobless carpenters chanted, “Lay off Bush,” contending the President is doing nothing to help people who have lost their jobs.

For Bush, taking a reduced-sized version of his State of the Union speech on the road was the first step in what White House and campaign officials said is a plan to focus on key issues, one by one, beginning with the economy, then moving to health care next week and other issues later.

“As businessmen and businesswomen, you can separate the sensational from the sensible, the sweet-sounding quick fixes from real solutions. When it comes to America’s economy, we can’t accept empty symbols and slogans,” Bush said, adding that in Washington, the air is “thick with feel-good gimmicks that have nothing to do with true prosperity and everything to do with politics.”

Bush urged the audience to press Congress for speedy action on his proposals.

“What troubles me is, if we let it drag on, it’s going to get really caught up in the rough and tumble of the 1992 national politics,” Bush said.

Congressional Democrats pledged Thursday to act on Bush’s economic plan before his March 20 deadline but they served notice that the tax cuts they enact are likely to be more favorable to the middle class than those that the President has proposed.

At a hearing of the House Budget Committee, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) warned that “Democrats will cooperate” with the President’s desire for fast action, but vowed that they “will not fold” on their view that the package should be revamped.

At the same time, Gephardt sought to assure the Administration that Democrats will hew to current budget deadlines and try to avoid a “bidding war” over which party can push through the biggest tax cuts.

Recalling the tax-cut contest between the parties that followed the unveiling of former President Ronald Reagan’s tax package in 1981, the majority leader said: “The last thing we need to do is to bid it up in an effort--a false effort--to win something.”

The Democratic package is expected to include several of the elements that the President has proposed, from tax incentives for business investment and real estate to a credit for first-time home buyers and an easing of restrictions on individual retirement accounts.

But congressional leaders also are expected to add a broad tax cut for middle-income Americans, who would receive little tax relief from Bush’s plan, which is aimed primarily at better-off taxpayers.

Richard G. Darman, Bush’s budget director, insisted to lawmakers that the President’s proposal “will get the job done” in terms of reviving the economy.

But several Democrats--including Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), the Budget Committee chairman--questioned the President’s proposal, complaining that it contains too many budgetary gimmicks and unfairly concentrates the tax breaks on the wealthy.

Following his speech in Philadelphia, the President turned his attention to foreign matters. In New York, he met in his suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan with the leaders of six nations Thursday afternoon. He will spend today at the United Nations and meet at Camp David, Md., with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on Saturday.

But the decision to first turn the presidential spotlight on the economy reflected the White House effort to improve his position with voters through an aggressive public campaign in which the President demonstrates his concern about the pain the economic recession has caused.

Targets of Bush Cuts

President Bush has asked Congress to terminate 222 existing federal programs that he said do not deserve federal funding. The proposal calls for terminating programs in 15 departments and agencies ranging from Transportation and Housing and Urban Development to the Interstate Commerce Commission. Analysts said that most of the cuts have been rejected before by lawmakers and are unlikely to win approval now.

Among the programs he would scrap:

The Economic Development Administration. Although the program was set up in the 1960s to aid economically distressed areas, it has mushroomed so that 80% of the country now qualifies for grants. Savings: $11 million now, $229 million in future years.

Impact aid. Federal law provides for grants to school districts hurt by declining enrollments stemming from shutdowns of nearby federal installations or military bases. Savings: $112 million now, $139 million in future years.

Community Services Block Grants. These grants were designed to help create local community action agencies, but Bush said that the organizations are now “mature” and should not need federal help. Savings: $303 million now, $432 million in future years.

New public housing construction. The Administration wants to terminate construction of new public housing and instead give the elderly and disabled federal “vouchers” to help pay rent in privately owned apartments. Savings: $226 million now, $574 million later.

Urban Park Grants. Bush wants to scrap federal grants for maintenance and rehabilitation of city parks. Savings: $9 million now, $5 million in future years.

Asbestos loans and grants. Washington has been providing grants to help reduce problems prompted by disease-causing asbestos used in school construction. The Administration says that the job is largely done. Savings: $22 million now, $37 million in future years.

Advanced Solid Rocket Motor. NASA wants to develop an improved version of the solid-fuel rocket motors in the space shuttle but the Administration says that the project no longer is viable. Savings: $211 million now, $315 million in later years.

‘Pork Barrel’ Projects

The President also would stop federal financing for 24 other programs that he labeled “pork barrel” projects, designed only to help local constituents. Among the savings:

$17 million from scrapping an Agriculture Department grant program designed to help land-grant universities pay for construction and support of buildings and facilities without awarding the contracts on a competitive basis.

$4 million from not funding an Energy Department research program that the Administration says has not been properly evaluated.

Source: Times Washington staff