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.
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