The Danger in Delay : To keep public’s faith, Clinton must move on the economy

Talk about a brief honeymoon! Some commentators are already making much ado about President Clinton reneging on his promise to unveil an economic plan the day after his inauguration. Administration officials now say they plan to deliver an economic package next month.

Yes, the new President is off schedule, but what truly matters is that he deliver a well-conceived economic program that holds real promise for addressing the nation’s economic problems. Anything short of that could spell trouble for the nation, and Clinton.

The President currently holds tremendous political capital, and this was evident in reports from across the nation during the inaugural festivities. But he must be careful not to squander that capital by delaying for too long the announcement of his economic program. Public confidence in him could wane if there are too many indications that he is retreating from campaign promises. In one such retreat, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, his choice to head the Council of Economic Advisers, indicated Thursday that the Administration will be unable to create 8 million jobs as Clinton predicted last fall.

Too much more of this backpedaling will surely end the presidential honeymoon fast. If Clinton is seen as practicing politics as usual in Washington--which he characterized on Wednesday as “often a place of intrigue and calculation”--he will risk making his inaugural call for sacrifice and renewal just empty rhetoric.

The complexity of the nation’s economic problems and solutions were well presented at Clinton’s economic summit in Little Rock in mid-December. So the President owes the nation a timely, visionary economic plan. But it must be doable, too. Clinton can’t ignore the cogent motto of his campaign workers: “It’s the economy, stupid.”