Clinton Calls for a New Public Spirit, Less Government : State of Union: President exhorts Republicans to put aside ‘partisanship, pettiness.’ In address, he also urges a federally sponsored campaign to curb teen-age pregnancy.

President Clinton, exhorting the new Republican Congress to put aside “partisanship, pettiness and pride,” Tuesday called for a new effort to rekindle a public spirit of community and civic virtue, beginning with a federally led drive to curb teen-age pregnancy.

Under the gaze of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), Clinton told a joint session of Congress and a nationwide television audience that he will dedicate the rest of his term in office to a theme revived from his 1992 campaign, a “new covenant” between the citizenry and their government.

In his State of the Union Address, the President promised a less intrusive and more effective government, saying: “We cannot ask Americans to be better citizens if we are not better servants.”

To meet that pledge, Clinton promised a thorough review of the entire federal bureaucracy and vowed to eliminate “over 100 programs we do not need . . . like the Interstate Commerce Commission and the helium reserve.”

On his first visit to the Capitol since Republicans seized control of Congress in the November elections, Clinton was greeted warmly by members of both parties. He offered his congratulations to the many new Republican members of the House and Senate and to Gingrich.

He said that he had listened to the public’s voice in the November elections and did not hear America singing, he heard it shouting for change.

“All of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, must say, ‘We hear you,’ ” the President said.

And injecting a personal note, he acknowledged, “I have made my mistakes and have learned again the importance of humility in all human endeavor. But I am proud to say that our country is stronger than it was two years ago.”

Unlike Clinton’s two previous State of the Union addresses, there were few new legislative initiatives in the speech, in recognition of the new, hostile Repubican majority in Congress and the public’s deep skepticism about the effectiveness of government to solve the nation’s problems.

Thus, much of the speech was given over to lofty language extolling the virtues of voluntarism, community service and family responsibility.

“We must repair the damaged bonds in our society and come together behind our common purpose,” Clinton said, defining that purpose as nothing less than remaking “our economy, our government and ourselves.”

While reaching out to Republicans, Clinton deliberately drew clear contrasts between his approach and theirs, saying that there are things Americans still want their federal government to do, such as helping displaced workers, responding to natural disasters and protecting the environment.

He urged the GOP leadership to work with him to raise incomes for struggling American workers but stopped short of a firm proposal for an increase in the minimum wage.

On immigration, Clinton promised a vigorous effort to police the nation’s borders and limit employment opportunities and public services for illegal immigrants. He endorsed creation of a national computer registry to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants.

Clinton’s purpose was clearly to restart his stalled presidency--and achieve some political leverage despite the Republican control of Congress--by returning to the themes that won him the White House in 1992.

The speech was, in effect, the launch of a two-year campaign to win back the hearts of the middle-class voters who supported him in 1992, then repudiated him in 1994, and who will decide the election of 1996.

His remarks included a relatively lengthy recitation of the Administration’s accomplishments, which aides said was included because polls have shown that most Americans are not aware of what Clinton has done in his two years in office.

White House aides took pains to point out that most of the themes Clinton highlighted in Tuesday’s address--including the “new covenant”--were not new but were a reprise of positions he has consistently followed throughout his political career.

They heatedly dismissed suggestions that Clinton was trying to redefine himself, arguing instead that the President was merely turning again to the core beliefs that helped him win the presidency in 1992.

Indeed, they told reporters that Clinton began the process of writing the address by going back to the 1991 speech in which he announced his candidacy and introduced the idea of a new bond between the people and their elected leaders.

As has become the custom for such events, Clinton invited several guests to watch the speech from the balcony of the House chamber.

Seated there with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton were a dozen citizens chosen to embody Clinton’s rhetorical themes: three members of the Lucas family of Hattiesburg, Miss., a Marine Corps Medal of Honor winner from World War II, his son and grandson; four volunteers from Clinton’s national service program, AmeriCorps; the police chief of Kansas City, Mo., Steven Bishop, an advocate of community-based policing.

Also with Mrs. Clinton were two members of the military who served in Kuwait and Haiti, Air Force 2nd Lt. Mary Kay McLean and Marine Corp. Cpl. Gregory Depestre; and the Rev. John Cherry and his wife, the Rev. Diana Cherry, of a large African American church near Washington which emphasizes community service and personal responsibility.

Much of Clinton’s proposal for a campaign against teen-age pregnancy was drawn from his own welfare reform plan announced last June.

In that plan, Clinton proposed a national campaign against teen-age pregnancy, a national clearinghouse for information on pregnancy prevention and grants to about 1,000 schools to develop prevention programs.

Officials said that the program would cost about $300 million, using money wrung from other entitlement programs.

“Children should not be born until parents are married and fully capable of taking care of them,” Clinton said when he announced the plan in Kansas City. “This trend did not develop overnight. There are many reasons for it. It will not be turned around overnight. But be sure of this: no government edict can do it.”

Clinton has cited teen-age pregnancy as a major problem ever since his campaign, when he called for “value-based sex education and health clinics in schools.”

Last February, he lectured high school students in Washington’s poor black Anacostia neighborhood on sexual responsibility, telling teen-age boys: “This is not a sport. It’s a solemn responsibility.”

The speech bore the mark of several outside advisers Clinton has consulted in recent weeks. The President’s three themes of a “new covenant,” a new government and a new economy came directly from a memo written by David Osborne, a private consultant who worked on Vice President Al Gore’s “reinventing government” initiative last year.

Osborne’s memo told Clinton, in sometimes brutal terms, that he had drifted from his original positions, ended up “on both sides of many issues,” and run “the most undisciplined White House in modern history.” But Osborne also told Clinton that he could win reelection in 1996 if he reaffirmed his “new covenant”--and reorganized his White House staff.

In proposing an increase in the minimum wage, Clinton deliberately chose a position that is widely popular in the public--but opposed by most Republican members of Congress.

It is one of several issues that White House aides call “contrast issues,” opportunities for the President to show where his position differs from the GOP--and to paint the Republicans as uncaring toward ordinary working people.

Indeed, while Clinton said that he wants to work with Gingrich and other Republicans to increase the incomes of low-wage workers, some advisers like campaign strategist Paul Begala have expressed glee at the thought of an all-out conflict over the issue.

White House officials quietly put out word of the minimum wage proposal on Monday precisely so the news would not dominate media coverage of the address and crowd out Clinton’s larger message.

The Times Poll released Monday found that a whopping 72% of Americans favor a minimum wage increase, with only 24% opposed. Even Republicans favor an increase, by 62% to 35%.

Clinton also challenged Republicans to tell the American people how they intend to balance the budget, as the GOP “contract with America” promises to do by the year 2002.

A centerpiece of Clinton’s program is his “middle-class bill of rights,” offering tax breaks to families with children, deductions for college tuition and incentives for retirement savings. It also promises $2,600 in direct vouchers for people seeking job training. It is projected to cost $60 billion over five years.

Republicans have their own tax-cutting plans, including a $500-per-child tax credit, a move toward repeal of the marriage tax penalty and other steps for middle-class tax relief.

Republicans intend to propose a $200-billion, five-year program of spending reductions and government cutbacks as the down payment on balancing the budget and paying for their tax cuts.

Clinton pointedly said that he will not tolerate tax cut plans that would reverse the progress his Administration has made in shrinking the federal deficit.

Clinton also strongly defended his cherished national service program against threats from Republicans to cut its funding.

Clinton has described the service program known as AmeriCorps as the legislative achievement he is most proud of. He said it captures the combination of private service and public guidance that defines his “new Democrat” approach to government as society’s servant and not its master.

The program provides young volunteers with minimum wage pay and as much as $4,725 in education vouchers in exchange for service in a variety of community projects ranging from helping police patrol violent neighborhoods to teaching underprivileged kids to read. Clinton has proposed spending $1.5 billion over three years to put 100,000 volunteers to work in a program he describes as a domestic version of the Peace Corps.

Gingrich has said he is “totally, unequivocally” opposed to the program and vowed to trim or eliminate its budget.

Clinton also promised to resist GOP attempts to repeal the ban on assault weapons contained in the crime bill he signed last summer or the Brady handgun-control law passed in 1993.

But he said he would work with Congress on such measures as the line-item veto, preventing the federal government from imposing new programs on the states without paying for them.