Economic Downturn Turns Up Heat on Brady : Recession: Treasury secretary is increasingly drawing election-year fire from GOP conservatives. He still has strong relationship with Bush.

Under blistering criticism from both the left and right, Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady is fast becoming a lightning rod for frustration and anger over President Bush’s handling of the nation’s troubled economy.

Sources said Thursday that the White House, under intense election-year pressure, is increasingly concerned by the attacks on Brady.

Brady, a close friend of Bush, seems secure in his post--at least for the time being. However, White House Chief of Staff Samuel K. Skinner has become especially concerned by the conservative criticism of Brady, the sources said, and may be forced to move to reduce Brady’s influence and visibility.

The Bush reelection campaign is also anxious that the conservative complaints about Brady may further damage Bush’s already weakened standing with the Republican Party’s right wing.

“Skinner is concerned about anything that damages the President,” one source said. “Skinner has to deal with this.”

On the presidential campaign trail, Brady has already become a prime target for conservative Republican challenger Patrick J. Buchanan, who has taken to describing Brady and Budget Director Richard G. Darman as “the Derek Humphry and Dr. Kevorkian of the American economy”--a reference to two leaders of the right-to-die movement.

Brady has become an issue in the Democratic presidential race as well. Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey has labeled him the “weakest secretary of the Treasury the United States has ever had--a nice guy, but a lousy secretary of the Treasury.”

The acrimony has become so intense in recent days that at least one conservative Republican senator has publicly called for Bush to fire Brady. Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) repeated his demands to Brady’s face at a congressional hearing.

The House minority whip, conservative Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), has gone so far as to ban Treasury Department officials from his office to signal his displeasure over what he considers to be the Administration’s tepid economic proposals.

“The Treasury bureaucracy has become a bigger threat to conservatism than the State Department bureaucracy,” a Gingrich spokesman charged.

“I think . . . the support for my position (demanding Brady’s ouster) is very deep in the Senate,” Mack said in an interview. “Many of my (Republican) colleagues have privately told me they think I did the right thing, that the President has to do something about the Treasury.”

Brady so far has dismissed the attacks as little more than the byproduct of the political season.

“Anyone in politics understands that if you make difficult choices and face problems and come up with solutions, you’re going to get some heat,” said Treasury Department spokeswoman Desiree Tucker-Sirini. “The secretary understands this is a fact of life in politics.”

Yet the Treasury Department is clearly sensitive to the criticism. Treasury officials suggested to The Times that Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), a leading conservative, would be willing to defend Brady. But a Gramm spokesman offered a pointed “no comment” when asked whether Gramm supports Brady as Treasury secretary.

The criticism of Brady underscores the widespread sense in both parties that Bush’s policies have so far been inadequate to deal with the nation’s severe economic problems. For conservative Republicans, especially, going after Brady is a way to protest Bush’s economic policies without directly attacking the President.

“Obviously, it (the criticism) is a product of a very difficult political and economic environment,” said one senior government official, who asked not to be named. Darman has been pretty good “at keeping his head down,” said the official, and White House chief economic adviser Michael J. Boskin “has caught some of it,” but Brady “is an obvious hit.”

Brady’s recent public performances have done little to reassure those who are looking for signs that the Administration has a firm grip on the enormity of the difficulties facing the economy, which is now in the midst of the longest recession since World War II.

Speaking to the National Assn. of Business Economists on Wednesday, for example, Brady prompted scattered laughter when he suggested that the economy is likely to improve in part because consumers are running low on replacement light bulbs and that “the nation’s tires are bald.” Indeed, Brady cheerily noted, he himself bought two new tires the previous weekend. He then said that he saw “robins on the lawn” of the economy, suggesting that a recovery was on the way.

Brady, 62, is one of Bush’s closest personal friends in the Administration. His one-on-one relationship has not yet eroded--despite growing concerns by Skinner that Brady may be on the verge of becoming a political liability.

But now, many in Congress and within the Administration are broadening their criticism of Brady, questioning not only his effectiveness as a spokesman for Administration economic policy but also his ability to manage the Treasury Department.

“This Treasury is the weakest in memory, both in terms of its impact on the domestic debate and its influence internationally,” said one leading international economist.

On the domestic side, conservatives have been angry at Brady and Darman ever since they compromised on a tax increase with congressional Democrats to gain approval of the 1990 budget agreement. Many conservatives believe that Brady symbolizes a return to Republican accommodation with liberalism and an abandonment of the supply-side ideals of the Ronald Reagan Administration.

Others in Congress blame Brady for mishandling the failed White House efforts to win banking reform last year. “The things (the Treasury Department) has done (on banking legislation) have been astoundingly unprofessional,” said a senior staff member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

But Brady, who is widely considered a genial and pleasant man, still has his supporters on Capitol Hill, who believe that he is often underestimated by his critics. One senior congressional source said Brady’s tendency to “ramble” when he speaks has sometimes worked to cool off heated partisan debates between the Administration and Congress.

Inside the Administration, of course, Brady has the support of the one man who counts--Bush.

“He is a very level-headed person, he doesn’t get real up or real down,” said one Administration official who knows Brady well. “He is very steady at the helm. He gets criticism because he has taken problems head on, like the savings and loan crisis and the Third World debt crisis. But he is good at taking criticism. He figures it goes with the territory.”