Washington

PRESIDENT Clinton is putting his tax plan to the House of

Representatives tomorrow, and badly needs to win the vote. His

administration has suffered a long series of minor misfortunes since he

took office and the president can claim only one big success: when both

houses of Congress passed the budget last February.

Some of Mr Clinton's troubles are his own fault, some the fault of his

youthful and inexperienced staff, and some the inescapable effects of

the American constitution, which permits members of Congress to block

the president's programme to further their local interests.

But the result has been a sharp drop in the president's popularity:

now more Americans disapprove of his performance than approve and a

large majority expects things to get worse, not better, despite all the

change and excitement promised by the new Government.

Conservative Democrats are lining up with Republicans to attack Mr

Clinton's tax proposals: he has offered an energy tax to help reduce the

federal deficit, along with various cuts in federal spending. The

opposition wants more cuts and fewer taxes.

If Congress is to meet the targets it agreed last February to reduce

the deficit, taxes must be increased. Mr Clinton has nailed his colours

to the mast on the energy tax and he will probably win in the House.

The Senate will be more difficult. A group of senators, including

several Democrats, vows to oppose the proposal, come what may, and at

the moment it does not look as though the president has the votes.

If Mr Clinton were riding a great crest of popularity, like Ronald

Reagan in 1981 or Lyndon Johnson in 1965, he would easily prevail. But

his political base is much narrower, and he has wasted a great deal of

political capital recently in publicity disasters.

The presidential plane was held on a runway in Los Angeles 10 days ago

while the president had a hair cut. Not a serious matter, one would

think, but several commercial flights were delayed while an exceedingly

expensive barber, called Christophe, did his stuff.

It did not sit well with the president's populist image to keep the

world waiting while he had a $200 hair cut.

A much more serious blunder followed a few days later. The seven

people who run the White House travel office were summarily sacked for

incompetence. It then turned out that a relative and a friend of the

president's were angling for the jobs themselves.

The White House announced that the FBI was investigating the travel

office, on suspicion that funds might have been misappropriated. The

Washington Post revealed yesterday that the bureau was brought in

without the knowledge of the Attorney General, Janet Reno, who had

promised the Senate during her confirmation that the FBI would never be

politicised.

The White House has been in spin control ever since. Yesterday it

announced that only two of the White House Seven had been sacked. Five

were put on leave during an inquiry.

The communications director, George Stephanopoulos, apologised to Ms

Reno for releasing the FBI statement without consulting her.

No doubt most of the fault is the enthusiasm and inexperience of some

of the young men and women Mr Clinton has brought into the White House.

But Mr Clinton gets the blame. At a time when he is trying to whip up

public support for his economic programme, he has no need of such

trivial distractions.