Agenda Buoys Popularity of President

President Clinton’s new budget represents far more than a tall stack of dollar figures and forecasts: It is the blueprint of a domestic agenda that--more than public relations or shrewd gamesmanship--explains why many Americans continue to support him despite a relentless parade of controversies.

Clinton’s approach of balancing the budget while preserving an important role for government distinguishes him from activists in his own party, who would spend more, and Republican conservatives still bent on slashing tax rates and federal agencies.

Aided by an economy that has largely eliminated the pain and sacrifice associated with wiping out the deficit, Clinton has even been able to promote initiatives for schools, health care, the environment and other areas of considerable interest to the public.

“If you can do all that--protect Social Security, spend some money on good stuff and still be fiscally responsible--then I think, in the short run, voters will reward you,” said Ruy Teixeira, a political analyst at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, who questions whether the White House proposals would address the nation’s true problems. “The issue is whether it works over the long run.”

While the news media focused on sensational allegations surrounding the presidency, top White House aides were preparing for the year’s two landmark opportunities to reach Americans with their agenda--last week’s State of the Union address and Monday’s five-volume budget release. They were keenly aware that the healthier budget outlook would bring within the realm of the plausible proposals that once would have been dismissed.

Indeed, a poll by the Pew Research Center last week found that two-thirds of Americans would prefer that budget surpluses be tapped for spending rather than be used to cut taxes or shrink the national debt. Clinton’s budget assumes a surplus of $9.5 billion for fiscal 1999, and steadily growing surpluses that would add up to $1.1 trillion 10 years from now.

Clinton would target some of his spending toward working- and middle-class families, through such measures as a proposed expansion of Medicare to eligible Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 and a broad increase in tax benefits for child-care expenses.

“Most of these programs hit a broad base of Americans, either as individuals or in their extended families, and they’ll continue to enjoy a broad base of public support,” maintained Kim Wallace, a political analyst at the Lehman Bros. investment firm in Washington.

Alluding to the president’s public approval rating, measured in the range of 70% recently, Rahm Emanuel, a senior advisor to Clinton, said: “You can analyze it 100 different ways.” But Emanuel said he believes it is “based on the fact that the public supports the direction the president wants to take this country, the policies he’s proposed and the ideas he’s annunciated.”

A defense of government served Clinton well in late 1995 and early 1996, when cost-cutting Republicans were willing to shut down many services rather than compromise with the White House over spending plans. The public backlash against Congress helped propel Clinton, who had been wounded by Democratic losses in the 1994 elections, to his reelection last November. “What we found out in the government shutdowns was that voters want--and expect--to see the benefits of their federal government,” Wallace said.

But if Clinton benefited from his anti-shutdown position in 1995, it was the ongoing and extraordinary economic expansion that may have provided a longer-term boost and set the stage for the agenda released Monday.

That expansion, which began slowly in 1991, has raised Americans’ incomes, filled government coffers and contributed to growing public optimism about the future. Critics from different points on the political spectrum argue that the good times mask inadequacies in Clinton’s budget proposal, but they are struggling to find an effective message to resist it.

Proponents of a more significant federal role in solving the nation’s problems argue that the president has failed to offer solutions equal to the nation’s problems, such as the difficulties faced by have-nots even in a time of prosperity.

As another example, the White House proposes a $10-billion, 10-year plan to help finance school modernization, a problem that some say is vastly larger.

“There’s an argument to be made that it needs to be 20 times that amount,” said Teixeira, of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “Where’s the inspiration?”

For their part, fiscal conservatives are searching for an effective rejoinder to a government-friendly Democrat in the White House who has wrapped himself in the mantle of fiscal responsibility. They reject Clinton’s credentials as one of their own, maintaining that the very spending initiatives he is touting in his budget--such as allowing younger retirees to qualify for Medicare and increasing child-care tax benefits--amount to “mini-time-bombs” that will inexorably rise in cost.

Typically, they favor tax cuts, although public backing for that position appears low. A recent Times Poll found that 12% of respondents opted for using the budget surplus to reduce taxes--well behind those who called for strengthening Social Security (37%), increasing funding for education (28%) or reducing the national debt (17%).

“He’s a great communicator, and he did a great job of communicating that message” of fiscal responsibility, said Stephen Moore, director of fiscal studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. But, he added, “it’s not fiscally responsible to start creating new entitlement programs.”

In his own comments Monday, Clinton displayed a clear awareness of the intensely political nature of his budget plan.

“We’ve done more than simply balance the budget, more than just line up numbers on a ledger. We have restored the balance of the values in our policy, restored the balance of confidence between government and the public,” he said.