Bush, Congress Seek to Forge Urban Aid Plan

Galvanized by the Los Angeles riots, President Bush and Democratic congressional leaders indicated a willingness Monday to set aside some of the partisan bickering that has paralyzed them this election year and work together to swiftly adopt a package of federal programs to aid urban areas.

Top Democrats on Capitol Hill, who offered their plan Monday, were to meet at the White House today with Bush, who was expected to offer his own urban legislation, largely a repackaged version of previous Administration proposals.

In addition, White House officials said Bush would almost certainly include in the package a welfare reform proposal to which he has previously given little emphasis.

In their proposal, the Democrats said they would go along with a Bush-favored plan to create “urban enterprise zones” in which businesses are encouraged through tax incentives to invest in central cities, expand low-income housing and provide job training.

The Democratic leaders also proposed an immediate increase in federal disaster funds for Los Angeles and other cities, extension of jobless benefits, final congressional passage of a much-debated crime control bill and an extra $3.6 billion in public works funds.

The enterprise zone plan, along with home ownership subsidies aimed at public housing residents, had been included in a Democratic-backed tax package that Bush vetoed earlier this year because it raised taxes on upper-income Americans. Senate and House leaders said the plan could be passed again in separate legislation.

The Democrats’ letter even suggested a bipartisan approach to a national economic growth package, an issue that has sharply divided Congress and the White House all year.

“Americans need to know that their President and Congress, whatever their differences, can work together to meet urgent national needs,” wrote Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) in a letter to Bush. “We want to do so. . . . No one benefits if differences of opinion paralyze our society’s response.”

The White House praised the Democrats’ offerings as “encouraging.” Adopting an unusually gracious posture, Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said a package of bills proposed by the Democrats “looks realistic and it looks like very close to what we have in mind as well.”

“Both sides will have to compromise,” Fitzwater said. “I think both sides are willing to do that.”

Fitzwater spoke to reporters on a street in inner-city Philadelphia as Bush spent the afternoon touring blighted urban neighborhoods and visiting community leaders on what had been planned as a political fund-raising trip.

The rare presidential foray into urban America followed by only three days his return from riot-scarred Los Angeles and illustrated anew the degree to which the violence there has caused the White House to shift its political focus.

The President’s plan, finally hammered out Monday evening after intense planning sessions, includes the enterprise zones and the following elements:

--A housing plan intended to make home ownership possible for low-income people in an effort to move them out of public housing projects that are often breeding grounds for crime;

--A long-range school program to provide publicly funded vouchers to help pay for private or parochial school tuitions--a measure intended to press public schools to face up to competitive pressures and improve their programs or lose public funding, and students, to other institutions.

--The “weed and seed” program, intended to “weed” criminal elements out of a neighborhood and then inject job, education and other programs intended to improve the quality of life in the vicinity.

Bush announced last week that the weed and seed program would be extended to Los Angeles through a $19-million grant. Still under consideration on Monday was whether to propose an expanded version of the program, with funds coming from a number of Cabinet agencies, beyond the Justice Department.

In addition, White House officials debated whether to give a major push to elements of the anti-crime bill Bush has advocated in the past and insert it into an urban issues package. The President’s crime proposal, stalled in Congress, would create expanded use of the death penalty in a wide number of federal crimes and sharply limit the power of criminal defendants to repeatedly appeal convictions.

The most hotly debated item, “jobs program for inner-city youth”--ultimately was rejected by Administration aides.

The debate centered not so much on the cost of the program, which was described as modest, but whether it would create an appearance of support for the sort of “Great Society” programs that have become anathema to the Bush White House. Such programs were advanced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the mid-1960s to provide housing, education and food assistance to the disadvantaged.

The shape of Bush’s urban program has been the focus of attention at the White House ever since the President returned home late Friday. It became the center of debate over the weekend as officials within the White House and at the upper reaches of the Bush reelection campaign sought to devise a program to demonstrate Bush taking action after his Los Angeles tour.

“I think this is a critical week for the President in terms of showing follow-through after the L.A. trip,” said another source close to the White House.

“The notion is, there is an opportunity to get quick passage--bipartisan agreement--but if we overreach, it can get bogged down,” he said, referring to concern that pressing for approval of a program with too many controversial elements in an attempt to take advantage of sentiment for quick action could doom the entire proposal.

Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee was expected to approve today a bill allocating $494.6 million for small-business disaster loans and other assistance to Los Angeles and Chicago, where flooding in tunnels under the downtown area caused extensive damage.

Still unresolved, however, is whether Bush will agree to designate the added spending as an “emergency” under the Budget Enforcement Act and waive the provision that requires the half-billion dollars be offset by cuts elsewhere or by new revenue-raising measures.

Times staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.