Clinton Proposes Quick Job Growth to Spur Economy : Recovery: President-elect urges business investment tax credit and accelerated public works projects. He calls for a restrained approach to cutting the deficit.

Cautioning against hopes for “overnight miracles,” President-elect Bill Clinton said Thursday that he would seek a business investment tax credit and “substantially” accelerated public works projects to stimulate job growth, while embarking simultaneously on a “disciplined,” four-year deficit-reduction plan.

Striving to maintain that tough balancing act, he expressed concern that too drastic an attempt to cut the deficit would choke an economic recovery.

In a wide-ranging press conference, his first since the election, Clinton also said that he will release today stringent conflict-of-interest guidelines for his transition staff. Similar guidelines for members of his Administration are nearly complete, he added, as is a legislative package of sweeping campaign reforms that he will present to Congress.

With Vice President-elect Al Gore at his side, a clearly exuberant Clinton pronounced his transition to be “in high gear” and proclaimed “a clear mandate” from voters to break the gridlock in Washington.

While acknowledging the momentous amount of work that faces him, he said that he relishes the difficult challenges that he had sought so indefatigably for more than a year.

“I’m having a wonderful time,” he said. “I mean, it is an enormous responsibility but I asked for it and it’s an indulgence to feel overwhelmed by it.”

Noting that he and Gore had worked until after 11 p.m. the previous night, Clinton added: “ . . . Most people can do most jobs if they summon their best effort. And I’m just going to give you my best effort every day.”

In addition to his pronouncements on the economy, the President-elect also vowed to:

* Reverse a Bush Administration gag rule on abortion counseling in federally funded clinics.

* Repeal the stringent restrictions on the immigration of Haitian refugees.

* Allow gays and lesbians to serve in the military after seeking advice from advisers on how best to implement the policy, saying that “the issue is conduct.”

* Appoint a Cabinet that includes women, minorities and perhaps Republicans in an attempt to end “finger-pointing and blame” in Washington.

The Economy

Clinton said that immediately after taking office he will ask Congress to adopt an investment tax credit that would “give the private sector incentives to go out and invest in new plant and equipment and to increase their capacity to hire.”

Quoting an independent consulting firm’s analysis of his plan, Clinton said that the tax credit “would create a half a million private sector jobs in the first year alone.”

Second, Clinton said, he will seek to “accelerate spending on the nation’s infrastructure, such as road and water projects,” in part by transferring defense cuts to such domestic projects. This approach also would “have a lot of spin-off job creation,” he said.

As for the nation’s staggering national debt, he called for “disciplined reduction . . . so we send a clear signal to the markets at home and abroad that we’re going to bring this deficit down.” Such efforts must be made gradually, however, he said, “and within a framework which permits us to substantially increase investment.”

He cautioned, as he did in the closing days of the campaign, against inflated public expectations, saying: “We didn’t get into this business overnight and we’re not going to get out of it overnight. . . . We’ve been in this deep recession for a long time now.”

Clinton said that he also is focusing on a plan “to deal with the exploding cost of health care and the fact that a hundred thousand Americans a month are losing their coverage, something that is ballooning the Medicaid budgets of this state and virtually every other one in the country.”

But Clinton took pains to explain that some of his programs cannot be unveiled before myriad intricate details are worked out and translated into proposed legislation.

As examples, he cited the proposed investment tax credit and another campaign promise that won popular acclaim: the plan to grant universal college tuition in exchange for two years of national service.

“It’s all very well to say you want an investment tax credit and quite another thing to make the 15 decisions that have to be made to shape the exact bill you want,” he said.

Appointments

Clinton announced the appointments of nearly 50 staff members to his transition team. Among them were Harvard economist Robert B. Reich as assistant transition director for economic policy; Samuel Berger, a former Jimmy Carter Administration State Department official as assistant director for national security; Judy Feder, a Georgetown University professor who directed a recent federal study of the nation’s health care system, as assistant transition director on health care.

Florida’s top environmental regulator, Carol Browner, was named to head Gore’s transition team. Browner, who once served as Gore’s top legislative aide in Congress, is among those mentioned for senior Administration posts, either at the EPA or in Gore’s office.

All the appointments, Clinton said, “reflect my commitment to assembling the most qualified and diverse group of people available, including men and women with broad experience.”

He said that he intends to proceed more deliberately with the appointment of Administration officials, saying that he, Gore and others are focusing “an enormous amount of time” on the matter.

“I think that too often in the past Presidents-elect have been in a rush to fill the Cabinet positions before they decided whether they wanted these departments to pursue a different mission than had been pursued in the past and without considering perhaps how these departments should fit one with the other,” Clinton explained.

For example, while some may deem the secretaries of commerce and energy as “minor” posts, he said, in a Clinton Administration they will be “very major appointments.”

“How they pursue the missions of those departments will affect the success or failure of this Administration’s economic efforts as well as what is done by the other major economic players,” he said.

Nevertheless, Clinton promised to make such appointments “in a timely and appropriate fashion.”

He said that he is now “aggressively looking among, not only people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds and men and women, but also people of different political backgrounds who share the common goal of restoring economic growth, job creation and income and strength to this country.”

Ethics

The conflict-of-interest guidelines to be issued for the transition team today are expected to bar transition members from representing clients with government ties for perhaps several months.

Similarly, guidelines will be enunciated next week restricting the lobbying activities of high Administration officials after they leave government service, Clinton said.

“I think the code of ethics requirements on the executive branch will give people confidence that whatever decisions we make in dealing with economic issues here and beyond our borders will be made by people who cannot in turn profit from them for several years after they leave the government. And that will increase the credibility of our decision-making,” Clinton said.

The President-elect also said that he will seek congressional passage of campaign reform that would “leaven the influence of special interest groups with the public interest because people will know more about what lobbyists are doing when they’re doing it.”

While Clinton did not get into specifics, he said:

“If we can pass campaign finance reform, I think every election will be like this last election. That is, I don’t think incumbents will have a free ride in the Congress even when things settle down some if you have limits on total spending, you open the air waves to debate and you limit the influence of PACs (political action committees).

“Then I think every election can be like this presidential election was. People have to go on the talk shows; they have to do the debates; they have to do the town meetings. They have to honestly defend their records in order to get reelected.”

Of his pledge to work with both Republicans and Democrats, Clinton disclosed that he had “a good talk with Sen. (Bob) Dole (the Senate minority leader) on the phone yesterday,” adding that he intends to “hold out a hand of cooperation” to Congress.

The Kansas senator, while saying that he would work with the new Administration, has been outspoken in his disappointment at Clinton’s victory, saying at one point that it was clear “the best man didn’t win on Election Day.”

In answer to a question that referred to his failure to gain a clear majority in the popular vote, Clinton said: “I think that the clear mandate of this election from the American people was an end to politics as usual, an end to the gridlock in Washington, an end to finger pointing and blame.”

Other Issues

On defense matters, Clinton said that his “multi-year” budgetary plan will maintain a strong national defense posture even in the era of down-sizing. He also said that he will work to reduce nuclear weapons with Russia and with other nuclear powers.”

Clinton said that he will work to keep the Middle East peace process “on track and do whatever I can to make sure there is no break in continuity.”

He also said that he hopes to “strengthen global economic growth” by resolving problems he sees with the recently negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada and by working to end trade problems with Europe. Clinton has previously expressed reservations over whether the North American trade accord contains sufficient environmental protection safeguards.

Clinton spoke most sternly when asked about this week’s firing of Elizabeth M. Tamposi, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, who was involved in a search for the passport records of Clinton, his mother and independent candidate Ross Perot during the campaign.

“If I catch anybody using the State Department like that when I’m President, you won’t have to wait until after the election to see them gone,” he replied.

“The State Department of this country is not going to be fooling with Bill Clinton’s politics and, if I catch anybody doing it, I will fire them the next day,” he added. “It is too important to me that the rest of the world see us as having a coherent and, as much as possible, nonpolitical foreign policy.”

When asked about gays and lesbians in the military, Clinton reiterated his pledge to do away with the ban against them, but he also expressed an inclination to proceed with caution.

The Transition Team

President-elect Bill Clinton on Thursday announced these appointments to his transition team: * Transition Board Members--Doris Matsui, wife of Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento), active in women’s and children’s causes. Anne Cohn Donnelly, executive director of the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse. * Chief Financial Officer--Eli Segal, chief of staff of Clinton’s presidential campaign. * Deputy Directors--Alexis Herman, deputy chairman of Democratic National Committee. Mark D. Gearan, chief of staff for Vice President-elect Al Gore during the presidential campaign. Assistant Directors: * Political Affairs--David Wilhelm, presidential campaign manager, former campaign manager for Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago. Deputies--Maria Luisa Haley, Jose Villareal, Jeffrey Watson, Chuck Richards, Chris Hyland. * Communications--George Stephanopoulos, communications director of the presidential campaign. Deputies--Marla Romash, Robert Boorstin, Ricki Seidman, Jeffrey Eller, Michael Waldman. * Press Secretary--Dee Dee Myers, press secretary for the presidential campaign, former deputy press secretary for Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles. Deputy--Max Parker. * Economic Policy--Robert Reich, Harvard economist, former Rhodes scholar with Clinton. Deputy--Gene Sperling. * Domestic Policy--Al From, founder and executive director of the Democratic Leadership Council. Deputy--Bruce Reed. Health Policy--Judith Feder, co-director of the Center for Health Policy Studies, Georgetown University Medical School. Deputy--Atul Gawande. * National Security--Samuel (Sandy) Berger, Washington attorney, former State Department official in Jimmy Carter Administration. Deputies--Leon Fuerth, Nancy Soderberg. * Scheduling--Susan Thomases, New York lawyer, chief scheduler for the presidential campaign. Deputy--Isabelle Tapia. * Public Outreach--Betsey Wright, deputy chief of staff for the presidential campaign, former chief of staff of Clinton’s gubernatorial office. * Personnel--Jan Piercy, assistant director, Arkansas Department of Education. * Congressional Relations--Susan Brophy, director of Washington office for the presidential campaign. * Transition Director for Gore--Carol Browner, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation, former legislative director for Gore’s Senate office.