Perot Wishes Clinton Best, Expects Worst : Politics: Texan takes swings at President’s economic plan, saying it will balloon debt. He also jabs at Congress in talks at The Times, UC Irvine.

Texas businessman Ross Perot said Friday he is so anxious for President Clinton to succeed that “I want him to be on Mt. Rushmore,” but he also claimed that Clinton’s vaguely detailed economic plan would plunge the nation another $1 trillion in debt.

Sprinkling his comments with folksy aphorisms and his familiar grin, the 1992 independent presidential candidate said the President’s projected health care savings are “pie in the sky” rather than real figures.

But during a meeting with editors of the Los Angeles Times, Perot saved his harshest wrath for Congress. He predicted that the American people would unleash a “firestorm” over congressional privileges, pay raises and what he claimed was Congress’ subservience to lobbyists for powerful special interest groups.

Perot came to California to meet with members of United We Stand, America, Inc., the organization that grew out of his presidential campaign, and to promote his first nationally televised electronic town meeting on March 21.

The half-hour telecast on NBC will focus on government reform. Viewers will fill out forms containing 17 questions. Questionnaires will appear in TV Guide and perhaps elsewhere, he said.

For those who don’t have a prepared form, Perot said, “I will show them how to make a ballot from a blank sheet of paper so everyone can vote.”

The responses will be tabulated by congressional districts so members of Congress cannot claim the results do not represent their constituencies, he said.

But Perot already has his own assessment of what the people want: a balanced budget amendment, the line-item veto for the President, quarterly reports on federal financing, an end to pork barrel projects and possible term limits for members of Congress.

Perot declined to rate Clinton’s job performance on a scale of 1 to 10, saying that would be like trying to give a schoolchild a report card after only three days in class.

“We’ve got to give him time,” he said, adding that being President is “like being in a barrel with somebody beating on it with a stick.”

“Every morning you get up thinking you’re going to work on one thing, and then, you know, Jesus pops up in Waco.” And no matter how good a President’s proposals are, they get chewed up in the “sausage factory” of Congress, he said.

Perot acknowledged that the defense base closures announced Friday would help achieve one of Perot’s own major goals, to bring the federal budget in balance.

But he said the nation has to be certain it is “downsizing” the military under the proper priorities. If bases are to be closed, he added, “we need to explain it in great detail. We never explain things to the people.”

Then communities must accept the readjustment “of building a commercial base to replace what was a federally subsidized piece of the economic sector in that community. We just have to do it.” He did not say how the commercial base would be built.

If base cuts threaten recession, however, “obviously we don’t want to destroy the village to save it,” Perot said.

In Irvine on Friday night, Perot warned a college audience that government needs a powerful watchdog on financial problems that could jeopardize the country’s future.

“We want you to have the same opportunities that we have had,” Perot told the audience of about 5,000 at the UC Irvine Bren Center. “You could spend your entire adult life filling the hole that we have dug. We realize that’s wrong, and we’re going to fix it.”