Clinton Stresses Shared Sacrifice : Economy: President, in televised town hall meeting, tries to garner public support for his fiscal agenda. Questions range from the deficit to military gay ban.

Seven days before he unveils his economic plan, President Clinton on Wednesday appealed to the nation from economically distressed Detroit for the shared sacrifice that he maintains can solve the nation’s economic problems.

Clearly trying to prepare the nation for higher taxes and program cuts that he is expected to propose, Clinton said that he refuses to “play the same kind of game that’s been played for the last 12 years” and use “smoke and mirrors” to try to hide the problem of huge federal budget deficits from the public.

In a one-hour, nationally broadcast town meeting, Clinton took questions from audiences in four television studios across the country on such topics as the deficit, Haitian refugees, the middle-income tax burden, his fitful search for an attorney general, child care, gun control and homosexuals in the military.

But his chief goal was clearly to focus the nation’s attention on what he wanted to talk about: the need for average Americans to support his still-incomplete economic program. And it marked the beginning of a broader Administration campaign to market Clinton’s agenda on the economy, health care and other issues in hopes of building and sustaining public support for proposals he will advance during his presidency.

The broadcast, from the studios of WXYZ-TV, was linked by satellite with studio audiences at KOMO-TV in Seattle, WPLG-TV in Miami and WPLG-TV in Atlanta. Americans put questions to the President. The event was carried live by the C-SPAN and Cable News Network, as well as by 21 local stations across the country that bumped regular prime-time programming, betting that viewers would be more interested in public policy.

In a Republican response to the event, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) characterized Clinton’s appearance as “good PR” and the President “didn’t say no to anybody and I don’t know how he’s going to pay for all of this.”

Clinton opened the show by explaining his reasons for returning to the town hall format, which he used so effectively in the campaign. “I can see now after only three weeks how easy it is for a President” to lose touch with the public, he said.

Asked by an early questioner about the federal budget deficit, Clinton said that the problem will take many years to solve and pointed out that Japan had a proportionately larger deficit in the 1970s but brought it down over a period of years.

To a questioner who asked why the White House had turned so quickly in his presidency to the issue of the military ban on homosexuals, Clinton said he was “frankly appalled” that the issue had received so much attention during his first week. He suggested that Senate Republicans had forced the issue into public confrontation at a time when the Administration was trying to consult military leaders and others.

On the subject of warfare in former Yugoslavia, Clinton said that he and Secretary of State Warren Christopher believe the United States must be more aggressive in seeking a negotiated settlement, then possibly commit U.S. ground forces to enforce such a pact. Otherwise, he said, the Serbian “ethnic cleansing” will be validated and the bloody conflict can spread to other regions “and we’ll get pulled into it.”

Aides said in advance that the President did not plan to tip his hand on the contents of his economic program. Clinton told members of his Cabinet Wednesday morning that he wanted to talk in the TV meeting about “the economic problems and the budget mess we have inherited and the priorities and principles we intend to bring to our effort to change the country and bring about a recovery.”

The Detroit event was one of several steps the Administration is taking this month to advance two major elements of Clinton’s early presidency. It was coordinated with a TV show appearance by Vice President Al Gore in Ontario intended to ensure that the White House message reached a West Coast audience. On Thursday, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is heading Clinton’s health care reform study group, travels to Pennsylvania to promote that effort.

After Clinton’s economic speech to a joint session of Congress next Wednesday, members of the Clinton Cabinet will disperse throughout the country to sell Clinton’s program.