‘92 NATIONAL ELECTIONS : President Vetoes Urban Aid Measure : Inner city: He carries through on promise to reject legislation, which would have created new enterprise zones in L.A. and other big cities, saying it constituted a tax hike.

President Bush vetoed a tax bill Wednesday that would have set up new enterprise zones to create jobs in Los Angeles and other big cities, killing the only urban aid measure to emerge from Congress in the wake of last May’s riots.

Bush signed the veto message on Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from Houston, where he had ended his unsuccessful reelection campaign. The President said he opposed the bill because it would raise taxes and “destroy jobs.”

“The original focus of the bill--to help revitalize America’s inner cities--has been lost in a blizzard of special interest pleadings,” Bush said in his veto message. “The urban aid provisions . . . have been submerged by billions of dollars in giveaways.”

The $28-billion measure also would have expanded benefits for individual retirement accounts and provided new tax incentives for home buyers--provisions that Bush either favored or proposed initially himself.

Congress cannot override Bush’s veto because both houses have adjourned. Under the Constitution, if Bush had not vetoed the bill Wednesday, it would have died tonight anyway.

Democrats vowed that they would try to revive some kind of urban aid package early in the 103rd Congress, which begins Jan. 5. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) told reporters Wednesday that some kind of urban aid legislation is likely early next year.

The veto came despite a ploy by Democrats who had hoped that delaying congressional processing of the measure--as Congress eventually did last month--might prompt Bush to change his mind and sign the legislation after the Nov. 3 election.

The rationale was that if Bush were free of reelection concerns, he might sign the bill, despite his reservations about it.

The President has been especially sensitive to the tax hike issue since 1990, when he got in trouble politically for reneging on his 1988 campaign pledge to countenance “no new taxes” during his term in office. He effectively renewed that vow earlier this year.

Among components of the bill that Bush had proposed were tax breaks to help revive the real estate industry and revisions in tax law that would allow deductions for IRA contributions by individuals with incomes up to $75,000 and couples up to $100,000. Currently, the limits are $35,000 for individuals and $50,000 for couples.

The bill also would have repealed luxury taxes on boats, planes, furs and jewelry.

At the same time, however, the legislation included a spate of minor tax changes--from limiting deductions for some moving expenses to denying deductions for club dues--that Bush feared might be interpreted by critics as tax “increases.”

Bush had been warning for weeks that he would veto the tax legislation--both on the grounds that it contained some modest tax increases and because of the special-interest amendments that lawmakers tacked on.

Congress has overridden just one Bush veto since he has been in the White House--a bill passed earlier this year to re-regulate the cable television industry.

The urban aid legislation would have established 50 new “tax enterprise zones” that would have offered special tax incentives to businesses willing to set up operations in poor areas and hire workers from local neighborhoods.

The plan initially was proposed by Bush, but was accepted--and later modified--by Senate Democrats after a White House-congressional conference in mid-summer. However, to please farm-state lawmakers, Congress agreed to earmark half of the enterprise zones for rural areas.

Congress did enact some aid for summer jobs programs and other inner-city efforts as part of a huge supplemental appropriations bill earlier this year, but most of the money in that legislation went to replenish federal disaster-relief funds, not to bolster social programs.

Los Angeles city officials and others say that conditions have not changed significantly since the riots erupted. The disturbances began after a jury exonerated four Los Angeles policemen who were videotaped beating Rodney G. King, a black man.

It was not immediately clear what lawmakers might include in any new urban aid package next year but officials said they probably would wait for the new Clinton Administration to take the lead in developing proposals of its own.