Clinton Assails GOP Cuts That Tap Poor, Elderly

President Clinton, promising “brutal honesty” in addressing the nation’s economic and political problems, found another forum on Saturday for assailing Senate Republicans who voted for budget cuts that he said impose unfair pain on the poor and the elderly.

In a commencement speech at Northeastern University, Clinton said some lobbyists and lawmakers say: “ ‘More cuts, less taxes,’ but no details, no details.”

“Then when you look at the details, you find the details hurt the middle class, the working poor, the vulnerable elderly, (and) do less to create jobs and ensure our world economic leadership,” he said.

Saturday’s speech, along with a recorded radio address, followed by a day a Senate Finance Committee vote on Clinton’s economic program that meets the President’s demand for $500 billion in deficit reduction but alters his other priorities in significant ways.

The panel replaced his broad-based energy tax with a 4.3-cent-a-gallon fuel tax, reduced Medicare spending by an additional $19 billion and eased the proposed tax burden on the wealthy.

The bill still requires a vote by the full Senate and then--in what promises to be a bitter battle--will have to be reconciled with a markedly different version passed in the House.

Clinton declared that his Administration has begun the task of revitalizing the nation’s economy, but said: “We’ve got to finish the job.”

He told the 2,195 graduates, friends and family members who packed the sweltering Boston Gardens that his responsibility is to create a better future for them. But he acknowledged that many would find it difficult to locate jobs in the stagnant economy.

The President said he chose to speak at Northeastern, a 30,000-student urban campus often overshadowed by its more famous neighbors--Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology--because of its work-study program, which gives students workplace experience while they attend college.

Clinton also used the Northeastern appearance to plug his national service program, which is designed to provide education grants in exchange for work on public service projects.

He was joined on the dais by Massachusetts Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry, former governor Michael S. Dukakis and Boston Mayor Raymond L. Flynn, Clinton’s nominee to serve as envoy to the Vatican.

During his Saturday radio address, Clinton continued the assault on congressional Republicans and some members of his own party who have blocked elements of his economic program.

“The stakes are just too big to play political games,” the President said in his talk, recorded Friday night at the White House.

“If our growth plan gets caught in a web spun of gridlock and greed, this historic moment for America to get its fiscal house in order could slip away. You and I can’t let that happen,” he said.

In a response to Clinton’s radio address by Republicans, Illinois Rep. Henry J. Hyde gave no indication that his party would abandon the watchdog role it has chosen for itself.

“Republicans in the Congress are going to keep fighting against (Clinton’s) tax increases, his exotic social engineering, his pork-barrel spending, his handling of military issues, and the quota mentality that makes this White House see Americans not as responsible individuals but as members of competing groups,” Hyde said.

He accused Senate Democrats of agreeing “to a tax-and-spending package” that would result sometime this summer in “another version of the biggest tax hike in history.”

“Whether they focus on BTUs or just gasoline; whether they adjust this rate or jostle that loophole, as Simon and Garfunkel once sang: ‘Anyway you look at it, you lose,’ ” he said.

The President left the commencement ceremony to appear at two fund-raisers for Kennedy, which were expected to raise $850,000 for the senior senator’s reelection campaign next year. Clinton then flew to Portland, Me., for an event for Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell.