Bush Enlarges on School Voucher Plan : Campaign: He says the grants involve no ‘means testing.’ But aides say there is a $40,000 income ceiling, and cite other limitations.

In a reach of campaign rhetoric, President Bush proclaimed Tuesday that a White House-backed plan to provide school-choice grants to low- and middle-income families involved “no means testing.”

But Bush aides later acknowledged that the program would benefit only those families earning less than about $40,000 a year. The President made no mention of such a ceiling or other limitations as he touted the plan in the gymnasium of a Roman Catholic high school.

And he went on at a later appearance in New Jersey to vow: “I will not let you down, I will fight for the faith, I will fight for the American families, we are one nation under God, and never forget it.”

In describing the scope of his school-choice program, which would permit parents for the first time to apply $1,000 federal vouchers for tuition at private and parochial schools, Bush seemed at least overzealous in his pitch to the Catholic voters here.

Assuring an anxious mother of eight that no families would be excluded from the program, Bush declared: “This program that we’re talking about today, there is no means testing. A family like yours would be covered.”

Bush also failed to advise the audience that the $500-million pilot program proposed by the Administration would establish the school-choice program in only a small fraction of the nation’s school districts.

It was unclear whether Bush had simply misspoken or lacked knowledge about a program he has described as a central ingredient in his reelection campaign. But he made the statement on a day in which he appeared unusually eager to strike any chord that might energize his troubled campaign.

At a “Freedom Day” celebration at a Russian Orthodox Church in Garfield, N. J., Bush won rousing cheers as he pledged to become the first President “to set foot on the soil of a free and democratic Cuba” if elected to another four-year term.

He proceeded to rail against unnamed others who “want public schools to hand out birth control pills and devices to teen-aged kids” and “encourage kids to hire lawyers and haul their parents into court.”

At one level, Bush’s rhetoric followed a familiar pattern in which he often grows more excitable as a campaign appearance reaches its pitch. But it also underlined the degree to which he is striving to win back voters’ allegiance.

Mary Matalin, the Bush campaign’s political director, suggested to reporters here that the President might now begin to articulate a honed-down campaign theme. “You just have to remember three things,” she said. “Stronger economy, stronger families, safer streets.”

Yet as Bush sought at once to woo conservatives, appeal to former supporters of Ross Perot and overcome perceptions of past neglect, his utterances sometimes carried a jumble of messages.

In answers to questions from parents at Archbishop Ryan High School, Bush promised that he would take his school-choice proposal “to the American people this fall, get it in focus, and have that as part of the ingredient on which people vote.”

To voters who said they felt detached from the political process, however, he conceded: “I think we do need to do a better job--and I would accept full responsibility for this--in getting the American people informed.”

And in a bow to former Perot supporters, he said: “There’s disenchantment. But the worst thing to do is to give up--say, ‘I’m not going to vote, I’m going to sit on the sidelines, nobody can get anything done.’ . . . For us to give up on our system because of a frustration, we ought not to do that.”

Catholics are an important part of Bush’s electoral base. More than one-fifth of American voters are Catholics, and in 1988 48% of them backed Bush.

But the vision he conjured of $1,000 vouchers to be applied toward parochial-school tuition with “no means test” was an exaggerated version of what his Administration has proposed. A fact sheet distributed by the White Hosue last month to describe the proposed “GI Bill for Children” declared that “only middle- and low-income families are eligible to participate in this program.”

A White House spokeswoman, Laura Melillo, defended Bush’s remarks, saying he was referring to the fact that there is “no one single federal-mandated level for participation.” Instead, each state sets a ceiling based on the median family income in the state.

Bush also did not tell the audience that the program would provide for only about 500,000 of the nation’s 40 million eligible schoolchildren. Administration officials acknowledged that to provide the vouchers in a city as large as Philadelphia could consume as much as one-third of the proposed budget.

Bush’s remarks on the daylong campaign trip generally exuded a hard-charging determination, yet some hinted of the political peril he faces.

As he wrapped up his remarks in the Catholic school gymnasium, there seemed a catch in his throat. “It’s been an odd year,” he said. “It’s not been very pleasant for me and my family. But I’m a fighter, and I’m going to take this case to the American people.”

Earlier, as a local priest observed that he must carry “a lot of power and a lot of clout” as President, Bush interrupted with a rueful interjection.

“‘Don’t count on it, Father,” he said. “It’s not the way it appears, man.”