Bush Warns Clinton Poses Threat to Small Businesses : Politics: The President cites own private sector experience, says Democrats see firms as ‘a golden egg-laying goose that ought to pay more in taxes.’

President Bush, whose career in the public sector has spanned roughly 30 years, made a short trip to a small town Friday to contrast his earlier career in business with Bill Clinton’s life in politics and to charge that his Democratic foe sees small business “as a golden egg-laying goose that ought to pay more in taxes.”

Using a corner drugstore as his backdrop and a street-corner crowd gathered by campaign aides as his audience, the President shed his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves and lit into Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore.

The Democratic ticket, Bush charges, offers small business “a reverse version of ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous:’ You may not live like a millionaire, but you can be taxed like one if you listen to Clinton and Gore.”

Up and down Caroline and George streets in the heart of this Colonial-era town about 60 miles south of Washington, many of the antique stores and other small businesses Bush was touting were closed for the occasion.

The community, near the Civil War battlefield of Chancellorsville, provided a perfect visual setting for the President’s message of the day: that the mom-and-pop operations that help fuel American job growth would be severely damaged under Clinton, particularly by the costs of the Democrats’ health care proposals and unspecified taxes.

To drive home his point, Bush first visited the Fredericksburg Hardware Co., whose owner-operatorM. (Mac) Janney, told him: “We’re supposed to talk about health care.”

They did so briefly, and Bush complimented Janney on his store, saying: “Quite a place here. Big small place.”

The President, who headed to Texas after graduation from Yale University in 1948 and started an oil drilling and equipment company before turning his attention to politics and running for the House 28 years ago, said in his speech to the Fredericksburg crowd: “I’ve actually held a job in the private sector--something my opponent has not done. Half my life in the private sector and half in public life.”

“I know what it’s like to sweat out a tough deal, to shop for credit, to try your darndest to meet the next payroll--and even if I got ulcers to prove it,” Bush said. “I believe that meeting a payroll is a good qualification for President of the United States of America.”

Clinton, he said, has a three-part plan for small business: “tax, tax, tax.”

Bush also focused on the potential impact of a mandated health insurance plan.

Clinton has proposed a national health care system providing phased-in universal coverage in which employers would be required either to provide insurance or buy into a public program. He has said some federal aid would be available in early years to help companies with the cost.

Bush said one study, prepared by the independent Urban Institute, concluded that such a health plan would lead to a 7% payroll tax on those businesses that choose not to provide insurance for their workers. Another study, which he did not identify, took that figure and estimated that the tax would cost the country 700,000 jobs, Bush said.

Bush warned that combined with what he said was “an irresponsible slashing” of defense spending--Clinton has proposed deeper cuts in the Pentagon budget than the President--”it all adds up to 2.6 million jobs lost.”

In the daily give-and-take of the campaign, the Clinton organization immediately challenged Bush’s figures. “That’s just phony,” said Clinton communications director George Stephanopoulos.

Bush also said that Clinton “says he wants to soak the rich, raise taxes on the top 2%. What he won’t tell you is this: Two out of every three business people hit by that tax increase are small businesses or family farmers. And these folks aren’t millionaires, they are mom-and-pop operators. And we don’t need to tax them any more.”

Stephanopoulos said that charge was “just wrong.”

Clinton’s plan, would raise the tax rate from 31% to 36% for those with individual incomes greater than $200,000--about 2% of the wage earners.

“Fewer than 3% of small businesses earn more than $200,000. Fewer than 1% of family farms earn more than $200,000,” he said. “The numbers don’t lie.”

After his speech, Bush used a small desk set up on the speaker’s platform to sign into law the Small Business Credit and Business Opportunity Enhancement Act of 1992, intended to make credit more easily obtainable for small businesses.