Clinton Vows to Aid Defense Workers : Economy: President tells Santa Monica audience that Administration will release $500 million to help those hurt by layoffs. He calls for support of recovery plan.

President Clinton, campaigning like an incumbent doling out fiscal favors, announced Sunday in an appearance at Santa Monica College that his Administration will soon release $500 million in funds to aid workers displaced by defense cutbacks.

Clinton said that “a lot” of the money will be spent in Southern California, where layoffs in the defense and aerospace industries have been severe. Clinton said the money will come from funds that were already authorized by Congress but which the George Bush Administration refused to spend.

Aides could not provide details Sunday on how the money would be spent, but Clinton has spoken extensively in the past about the need to retrain highly skilled defense industry workers for civilian employment and to aid communities hit hard by cutbacks in the military.

Clinton said Sunday that he hopes to spend a total of $5 billion over the next four years “retraining workers and reinvesting in communities hurt by defense closings. It’s time to stop talking about defense conversion and start doing something about it.”

Later today, the President will take a similar message to Everett, Wash., where he is scheduled to speak to workers at Boeing Co., which announced plans last week to lay off 28,000 aircraft workers.

Clinton noted Sunday that the workers are being displaced not only by cutbacks in military orders but also by unfair competition from the Airbus Industrie consortium in Europe. Clinton said the consortium has received $26 billion in government subsidies over the last decade.

The President is also scheduled to speak in San Jose today, addressing workers at a Silicon Valley computer graphics firm. He will be joined at that appearance by Vice President Al Gore, and he has promised to unveil a new policy for fostering the development of new technologies.

Clinton said that while Southern California for decades has been a “beacon of hope” for the rest of America, it is now under great economic and social stress.

He said his recently unveiled economic program is designed to aid Los Angeles and other distressed cities through increased spending on education, economic development, early childhood programs, preventive health care and anti-crime measures.

Clinton spent the bulk of his 35-minute address to about 1,000 people gathered in the gym of the community college reviewing the plan that he presented to Congress last week. His visit to California was part of a continuing sales pitch for the controversial package of tax increases, spending cuts and new government programs designed to trim the federal budget deficit and create new jobs.

Clinton admitted that the tax increases could inflict pain on most Americans, but he pleaded for support because, he said, the long-term benefits of the package far outweigh the costs.

“The price of doing the same old thing is a whole lot higher than the price of change,” Clinton said.

He asked those in the crowd to tell their elected representatives to adopt the plan intact, even though they may object to cuts in cherished programs or to unpopular new taxes.

“I plead with you to communicate to the members of the House and the Senate that you understand you can’t just have the sweet parts of this program,” Clinton said. “You’ve got to have the tough parts too.”

He then returned to a refrain from his speech to Congress that has become a staple of his sales pitch: “You can’t just say: ‘What’s in it for me?’ You have to ask: ‘What’s in it for us?’ ”

During the flight from Washington to California aboard Air Force One, Clinton political adviser Paul Begala said the White House would listen to suggestions from Congress about additional or different spending cuts in the plan.

But, adopting a harsh tone toward Republican critics of the plan who say that it does not sufficiently reduce federal spending, Begala said one of the points of Clinton’s message is “to say to critics: ‘Put up or shut up.’

“This is not a game,” he added. “He’s had four weeks to come up with 150 spending cuts. Some of these folks up there had four years. Some of them had four decades. Surely they can come up with something.”

The Santa Monica College audience included hundreds of students and faculty members as well as a smattering of show business and political figures.

Seated in the front rows were a few dozen state and local Democratic politicians, including Sen. Barbara Boxer, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Comptroller Gray Davis, county Supervisor Yvonne Braithwaite Burke and half a dozen Los Angeles mayoral candidates.

Among the show business figures present were actors Ed Begley Jr. and Mariette Hartley.

The crowd was enthusiastic: Fran Manion, a mathematics instructor at Santa Monica College, said she found the President “engaging, charismatic. He makes people feel that he cares about what they think. I was especially excited to hear him talking about releasing the funds for (defense) conversion.”

Marsha Nickerson, a nursing instructor at the college, said Clinton was “able to generate enthusiasm for sacrifice. I’m willing to pay more taxes. I don’t harbor any resentment about that.”

But one member of the audience expressed skepticism about Clinton’s ability to tackle the federal deficit. “If I had a chance to talk to him,” the Malibu school administrator said, “I would have recommended that he put a 0.25% tax on food to raise money to reduce the deficit. I think he’s going to have a difficult time because people are really going to balk” at the President’s proposed energy tax.