Clinton Defends Economic Plan Before GOP-Leaning Lobbyists

Presumptive Democratic nominee Bill Clinton, delighted to be on the sidelines as President Bush and Ross Perot sling mud at each other, stuck to touting his economic plan Wednesday, defending his ideas before an audience made up mostly of Republican-leaning business lobbyists.

Not long ago, Clinton and his aides were bemoaning their absence from television news and newspaper front pages. But after two weeks of fairly extensive exposure, culminating this week in a wave of largely favorable publicity for his economic proposals, the Clinton camp seemed content to portray itself as happily above the increasingly bitter Bush-Perot fray.

The fight has “got to help us,” said Clinton communications director George Stephanopoulos. “What you see is two people brawling and a third talking about issues.”

And talk Clinton did, holding forth at great length before a midmorning session hosted by the National Assn. of Manufacturers.

Not surprisingly, given NAM’s overwhelmingly Republican orientation, the group gave him a chilly reception. Introducing Clinton, NAM president Jerry Jasinowski called the candidate’s plan “long on public investment and short on private-sector incentives” and criticized his proposed tax hikes for corporations and wealthy individuals.

Clinton, however, stuck to his guns. “Will the tax increases retard economic growth?” he asked. “I don’t believe they will.”

“We are way, way, way below any other major country in the percentage of our income we invest,” he added. “We have to meet the competition.”

And he repeated several proposals business groups have opposed, including a call for limits on high salaries for corporate executives and support for legislation that would require companies to give family leave to their workers.

In a possible sign of White House concern about the overall response to Clinton’s budget plan, Bush Administration Budget Director Richard G. Darman sharply criticized it at an unusual briefing for reporters--the first such on-the-record session he has held in roughly two years.

Clinton’s budget, Darman said, was “transparently phony” and would rely on massive tax increases while avoiding real cuts in federal spending. Moreover, he said, Clinton’s forecast of cutting the federal deficit by more than 50% by 1996 would require an overly optimistic forecast of economic growth.

In fact, the Clinton estimate, labeled a “strong growth” forecast, merely adopted Darman’s own estimate, said Clinton economic policy director Gene Sperling.

“I guess he has to do his job, but it must be very difficult,” Sperling said. “This Administration’s credibility about reducing the deficit is so weak, I can’t imagine anyone would take it seriously.”

Darman specifically criticized Clinton for not spelling out how he would cut the cost of so-called entitlement programs--particularly Medicare and Medicaid. But although the Administration has proposed an overall cap on entitlement spending, Bush has not yet specified how he would handle health care spending either.

Asked whether Bush’s own proposals would lead to the balanced budget he has called for, Darman conceded that the Administration would “have to go beyond” its current proposals. When asked if he were willing to do so, he said: “Not right now.”