Like Father, Bush Is Caught in a Politically Perilous Budget Squeeze

ASHINGTON, Sept. 8 — Eleven years ago during a fierce budget battle with Congress, President George Bush reneged on one of his main campaign promises — his read-my-lips pledge not to raise taxes. This proved disastrous politically and contributed to his failure to win re-election.

Now, with another bitter fight over the budget in the offing, President Bush is faced with many of the same circumstances that confronted his father, including an economy turned sour and a recalcitrant Congress. The big political questions this fall are whether the president will break his promise not to use surplus Social Security money to pay other bills and what the consequences of his decision, one way or the other, will be.

"There are obvious differences" between the situation in 1990 and the one now, said Robert D. Reischauer, who was then the director of the Congressional Budget Office and is now president of the Urban Institute, a research center. "But there are enough similarities," he said, "to cause the president to wake up in the middle of the night."

The president insisted this week that he intended to keep his promise. "We can work together to avoid dipping into Social Security," he told reporters at the White House. But he refused to say whether he would veto spending bills that would force the government to dip into the Social Security surplus.

Many economists and other budget specialists say they believe the president and Congress will find it impossible to keep spending low enough to avoid tapping into the Social Security trust fund.

"Everyone wants more for something, including Bush," said Stanley E. Collender, managing director of the Federal Budget Consulting Group at Fleishman-Hillard, the public relations and consulting firm. "I don't see how the president can end up saying anything but, `I had to go along to get what I wanted. Congress forced me into it.' "

Many leading Republican strategists say the president will not yield. "There is a bipartisan bright line in the sand, a death strip he cannot cross," said Grover Norquist, an influential conservative who heads Americans for Tax Reform. "If there is anyone in the White House who thinks you can touch Social Security, I don't know who it is."

The predicament is uncannily similar to the one the president's father had to deal with in 1990.

As is happening today, the economy was flagging in 1990 after years of prosperity. Because of the economic slowdown, because the administration's optimistic forecasts about revenues and spending were not borne out — another circumstance eerily similar to the one today — and because of the deficit-reduction law in effect at the time, the first President Bush had to accept one of three unpleasant options: across-the- board spending reductions in government programs of more than 30 percent; much deeper spending cuts in specific, popular government programs like Social Security and Medicare, or a tax increase.

The president tried to get Democrats to join him in picking the bitter medicine — just as the White House is now trying to get Democrats to join in resolving the Social Security problem. But the Democrats refused to budge in 1990, as they are refusing to move now, until the president declared which option he favored.

Finally, in June 1990, the elder President Bush opted for the tax increase, issuing a statement that "tax revenue increases" would be necessary. Three days later, he said at a news conference that "continuing economic expansion and employment in this country" were more important than a campaign promise and that "I've got to do what I think is right."

The conservative wing of the Republican Party, led by Newt Gingrich, then the House Republican whip, became apoplectic. After months of negotiations, including round-the-clock sessions in the officers' club at Andrews Air Force Base, White House aides and Congressional leaders finally struck a budget deal in September. But the House voted it down, largely because so many conservative Republicans voted against the president.

After some minor reshuffling and heavy-duty politicking, a new budget deal went to Congress, and it was approved narrowly, with a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate voting against it.

Politically, the first President Bush was never the same. Conservatives did not support him enthusiastically in his 1992 race for re-election. That caused him difficulty in the Republican primaries and was one of the factors that allowed Ross Perot to run a strong race as a third-party candidate in the general election.

Doubtless, the current President Bush would like to avoid the same political fate. That is why the president will decide to cut spending elsewhere and not reach into the Social Security fund, Mr. Norquist, the conservative strategist, said.

"He is wiser than his father because he watched his father self- destruct," Mr. Norquist said. In addition, Mr. Norquist said, no top advisers are recommending that he spend Social Security money the way two of his father's top advisers — John H. Sununu, the White House chief of staff, and Richard G. Darman, the budget director — counseled in favor of a tax increase.

But as was the case with his father in 1990, Mr. Bush has limited options this year, none of them attractive. To avoid breaching the Social Security line, he must agree to repeal part of his tax cut, withdraw his plan for more military spending or propose cutting spending for popular domestic programs.

Repealing the tax cut seems to be out of the question, and restraining military spending would mean breaking another promise and alienating an important element of his political support. A decision to cut popular programs could hurt him even more politically than using Social Security money to pay for them.

Repealing the tax cut seems to be out of the question...

And why is that, exactly?

My guess would be because he promised the tax cut and he is a man of his word.

He ought to tell the Dems that his veto is the line in the sand: no more spending until the economy picks up. Period.

If the shills in the press would stop droning about the "weak economy," "recession," most people wouldn't get the willies like they are now. They report the Dow like a heart monitor bleats the pulse of a terminal patient in hopes of manufacturing news, especially the kind that sells: bad news. Self fulfilling prophecies.

Maybe they ought to remind people that it is still Clinton's economy, and the slowing began last summer, not on Jan 20. Just because he took credit for the turnaround in the economy that occurred in the elder Bush's administration, or the budget balancing of Newt and his troops, is no reason that Bush has to take the blame of Clinton's screwups!

Remind the people that economies have historically and reliably cycled up and down, regardless of the political bent of the president and Congress.

Hell, I haven't even gotten my rebate check yet! And for all the talk of how the rebate won't do anything for the economy, did you notice the glut of signs in every department store begging you to spend it in their store? WalMart will even cash it no questions asked! How is this NOT going to stimulate the economy?

Bush Sr. fell for the Democrats foolish tax increase, viola! Recession. Bush Jr. knows better than to do the same. This is just the latest phony gambit by the Democrats, trying to undermine the Bush administration. They failed already to get mileage out of their environmental fraud, their election scam, the "Patients Bill of Rights" con, and the latest is their fraud about Social Security. Nothing ever changes.

The nonexistent Social Security "trust fund" was never a problem when Clinton was bloating the budget to record levels. Now, it is sacrosanct, at least if the Democrats can get political leverage out of it. Otherwise, they would spend everything in sight to expand the patronage/welfare state to expand their political power. But they will certainly object if Bush uses it for frivolous things like reversing the decline of the military. None of this will matter in two years, unless the Democrats are successful in further weakening the economy.y.

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	Jim Wilson/The New York Times President George Bush, shown at a 1988 news conference, came to be haunted by his broken "read my lips" pledge not to raise taxes.