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- <text id=91TT2662>
- <title>
- Dec. 02, 1991: At Least Someone Has a Plan
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Dec. 02, 1991 Pearl Harbor:Day of Infamy
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 20
- At Least Someone Has a Plan
- </hdr><body>
- <p>By Michael Kramer
- </p>
- <p> George Bush's popularity is vaporizing faster than
- teardrops in a blast furnace. Matched against an unnamed
- challenger in recent polls, the President actually loses the
- 1992 election. Unfortunately, you cannot beat somebody with
- nobody, and Bush still trumps the current Democratic field in
- head-to-head pairings. But each bit of bad economic news
- heartens the opposition and reveals a paralyzed Administration
- whose divisive domestic policy sessions have come to resemble
- dining-hall food fights.
- </p>
- <p> The Democratic contenders have yet to make the most of
- this opportunity. They are all great on diagnosis, but only
- Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton is close to cobbling together
- something resembling a coherent economic policy.
- </p>
- <p> Clinton has little use for either supply-side economics or
- "the old Democratic theory that we can just tax and spend." He
- is most concerned with helping the U.S. compete globally, so he
- emphasizes education and worker training.
- </p>
- <p> Clinton's plan is best perceived as a series of short- and
- long-term steps. To deal with the immediate crisis, he says,
- three antirecession measures are needed: 1) quicker spending on
- highway construction to provide 45,000 new jobs; 2) a higher
- ceiling on Federal Housing Administration mortgage guarantees
- to aid half a million first-home buyers; 3) a revenue-neutral
- tax-rate cut averaging $350 a year for middle-class families,
- to be paid for by increasing the tax burden on those who earn
- more than $200,000 a year. Most other Democrats favor a
- child-care tax exemption instead of Clinton's prescription, but
- only about half the population would be helped by such relief.
- Either approach would have almost no economic impact, but by
- acknowledging that the rich have reaped a decade-long windfall
- at the expense of the middle class, both reflect compassionate
- social policy.
- </p>
- <p> Over the long haul, Clinton would fully fund Head Start
- and institute a program of national service under which
- students would repay college-tuition loans by serving their
- communities for two years. Those two programs alone would
- require close to $10 billion, a cost that Clinton suggests could
- be covered by reducing defense spending and by imposing
- private-industry performance standards on government programs,
- with yearly 3% funding cuts mandated across the board.
- </p>
- <p> Overall, Clinton would limit government-spending growth to
- the rate of increase in personal income, which has been rising
- anemically for the past 20 years. Only investments in
- "wealth-producing, future-oriented" programs like research and
- development would enjoy deficit financing. Clinton would push
- for union work-rule revisions, and he would impose a tax penalty
- on corporations that pay their executives excessive salaries--a provision that could kick in when big shots' salaries exceed
- 25 times the earnings of a company's lowest-paid worker. Clinton
- views most current worker-training schemes as virtually useless.
- "Roughly 70% of corporate training expenses serve only 10% of
- employees," says Rob Shapiro of the Progressive Policy
- Institute, a centrist think tank that is advising Clinton.
- "Companies are loath to train lower-rung employees for fear
- they'll leave for other jobs. Compelling all U.S. corporations
- to spend similar amounts on all employees would solve the
- problem."
- </p>
- <p> If Clinton's campaign makes headway, his program will be
- scrutinized mercilessly. If not, it will be ignored. Whatever
- the outcome, Clinton has already proved that he, unlike Bush,
- appreciates the advice offered the President by Housing and
- Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp. The people will "forgive
- you for trying" to innovate economically even if you fail, says
- Kemp. "They will not forgive not trying at all."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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