THE 1992 DEBATES : All 3 Candidates Generally Stay Close to the Truth : Credibility: There are some questionable assertions, but none seem grievous. Also noted are some sins of omission.

As they wrestled with issues ranging from health care to international affairs Sunday night, President Bush, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and businessman Ross Perot generally stayed close to the facts. Each had some questionable assertions--but their sins against the truth were mostly venial, not mortal.

For example, Bush took credit for signing two major pieces of civil rights legislation--one guaranteeing equal rights for the disabled and a 1991 bill partially overturning several recent Supreme Court decisions restricting the use of affirmative action. But the President didn’t mention that he vetoed an earlier version of the affirmative action legislation.

Clinton at one point said his economic plan would cut the deficit by 50% in the next four years. But, in fact, Clinton proposes to add as much in new spending and tax breaks as he would save through cutting other programs and raising taxes. His deficit reduction claim is based primarily on the unproven assumption that his plan would increase economic growth, and thus swell government revenues.

Perot’s most questionable statement was his first. Perot claimed to be the only candidate put on the ballot directly by “the people,” not by an established political party or by special interest money. But Perot financed much of the petition-gathering effort from his $3-billion personal fortune, including more than $1 million in New York alone--after he announced on July 16 that he would not be a candidate for the presidency.

In all, Perot has spent more than $18 million to further his candidacy and maintains a paid staff of 50 people.

Two exchanges between Bush and Clinton also omitted significant facts.

In one of the evening’s few sharp encounters, Clinton criticized Bush for sending envoys to China after the massacre of pro-Democracy demonstrations in Tian An Men Square in 1989. “Mr. Bush sent two people in secret to toast the Chinese leaders and basically tell them not to worry about it,” Clinton declared.

In response, Bush said the United States had been the first nation “to stand up to the abuse in Tian An Men Square” and took credit for imposing sanctions against the Chinese leaders following the crackdown.

Clinton’s statement was broadly accurate--though perhaps somewhat overdrawn. Bush did dispatch National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and then-Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger on a secret mission to China just weeks after the massacre to indicate the United States wanted to maintain good relations. But since nobody knows exactly what they told the Chinese leaders, its impossible to say whether they assured them “not to worry about it.”

Bush did impose sanctions on China--but only under intense pressure from Congress. After his initial round of sanctions were criticized by congressional leaders as too weak, he was forced to offer a second package a few weeks later; Bush has subsequently vetoed congressional legislation requiring China to undertake reforms or lose its most-favored-nation trading status.

In their dispute about taxes, Bush and Clinton seemed to be talking past each other. Bush derided Clinton’s claim that he would impose higher taxes only on families earning $200,000 or more. “Taxing people over $200,000 will not get you $150 billion,” the President said.

But Clinton has never claimed that taxes on affluent families alone would raise that sum. His plan anticipates raising only $83 billion of its $150-billion four-year tax increase from a higher rate on affluent families; the rest would come mostly from a series of tax hikes on business.

The largest of those is a promised crackdown on tax collection from the subsidiaries of foreign companies operating in the United States. But many economists believe Clinton has substantially overestimated the amount of revenue he could raise through such tightened enforcement. That could force him to seek greater sums from individuals or other businesses than he has so far suggested.

In response to a tough question about his Administration’s policies on AIDS, Bush also offered questionable numbers. He was on solid ground when he said he doubled funding for AIDS research and other activities; according to the AIDS Action Council, a private advocacy group, federal spending on the disease has increased from about $1.1 billion in Ronald Reagan’s last year to about $2.5 billion this year.

But Bush said the Administration was spending $4.9 billion on AIDS. That number actually includes Medicaid and Medicare spending on AIDS, which is typically not included when describing funding levels for other diseases.

Bush also overstated the case when he said Clinton had failed to offer any proposals to reduce the cost of malpractice litigation. Clinton, in fact, calls for the development of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to diminish such litigation. But Clinton generally opposes the broader initiatives Bush has put forward to reform the legal system.

Bush was correct when he said Arkansas was one of the only states without a civil rights law; Clinton has proposed such legislation but failed to win its enactment. Clinton was correct when he said that Bush’s father, the late Sen. Prescott Bush, had denounced Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy for red-baiting in the 1950s. Perot accurately described his proposed boost in the gasoline tax as an annual 10-cent increase for each of the next five years, rather than an immediate 50 cent jump.

When discussing the economy, the three men generally offered defensible numbers. Clinton’s claims about his economic record in Arkansas, and Bush’s economic stewardship, were largely accurate. Clinton said he has created in Arkansas “more private sector jobs than have been created in the entire rest of the country.” That’s true: in the past four years, Arkansas has added 72,000 private sector jobs, while overall private sector employment has declined since Bush took office.

As Clinton said, Arkansas did rank first in the nation in job growth last year, fourth in income growth and third overall in economic performance in a study recently conducted for U.S. News & World Report magazine.

Bush accurately said the stock market has “been very strong” since he took office: the Dow has increased by 40% since he was inaugurated. And as Bush argued, exports have increased substantially in the past four years, though they have slowed somewhat more recently.

More confusing than misleading facts may have been the absence of explanations for several of the programs and policies the three men debated.

At one point, the three men debated without explaining the Oregon plan for Medicaid. The state proposed to ration care by ranking 808 medical procedures in order of priority; to control costs the state decided it would pay for the first 587, and not fund any of the remainder. The plan was rejected by the Bush Administration last August on the grounds that it violated the new federal law prohibiting discrimination against the disabled.

Times staff writers John Broder, Jim Mann, Marlene Cimons and David Lauter contributed to this story.