Promises of ’88 May Dog Bush in 1992 Race

WASHINGTON —  On his way to the presidency in August, 1988, George Bush was scornful when it came to campaign pledges. “The other party promises,” he pronounced as he accepted the Republican nomination. “We deliver.”

But time has shown his goals to be not so easily met. As the economy has fallen short of what Americans had been led to expect, so too has Bush--and their fates are closely linked. What sometimes sounded modest just three years ago now can seem to be all but out of reach.

“The consensus (among academics) was that George Bush had set such low hurdles that he would have no trouble clearing them,” said Colin Campbell, a political scientist at Georgetown University. “No one figured for the economy.”

There are some notable exceptions. But, in many cases, the candidate who boasted that he did not merely promise has not delivered as President, for a variety of reasons.

Where Bush told the nation to read his lips, a budget crisis forced him to abandon his no-new-taxes vow. Where he sought to establish educational credentials, an empty federal wallet has left his commitment open to question.

And, most glaringly, where he voiced an unquestioning American faith in economic growth, a persistent slump has called that vision into question. “Thirty million jobs in eight years,” Bush vowed before the Republican National Convention. After three years, the work force has grown by slightly more than 3 million.

To be sure, the 1988 campaign is often remembered as hollow, devoid of specific plans and focused instead on symbols. But beyond the empty talk of Willie Horton, the ACLU and the flag, Bush offered the same kinds of promises every candidate makes. And with another presidential campaign gearing up, Democrats are poised to make much of his failure to make good.

“At the end of the Gulf War, George Bush and his advisers felt they were in a position in which he transcended politics,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “But now he’s beginning to look like just another politician who makes promises and violates them.”

It is not yet clear how much Bush will be haunted by such attacks. In an interview, Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher, who will become chairman of the Bush reelection effort on Jan. 15, said that what critics call broken promises are no more than unmet goals.

“Everybody who runs a company, much less a country, will say he wants to increase profits by 10% a year,” Mosbacher said, “and it doesn’t always work out.”

But even Republican strategists who agree that voters are too cynical to have taken Bush at his word, point by point, say that an attack focused on the shortcomings in his record could add to the President’s difficulties.

“The question is,” says Eddie Mahe, a veteran Republican consultant with close ties to the White House, “is there any reason to believe him now if he didn’t live up to his promises before?”

Public opinion polls taken just before Bush took office in January, 1989, give support to those who argue that voters had already discounted some of his specific campaign pledges. Despite months of read-my-lips rhetoric, for example, only 29% in a New York Times/CBS survey thought Bush would stand by his commitment not to raise taxes.

But there was a broader economic promise that voters took very much to heart. Asked what they expected under Bush’s tenure, 74% said he would at least “keep America prosperous.” And it is here, for the White House, that a look backward is most unnerving.

What follows is a review of Bush’s major 1988 campaign promises and an assessment of whether he has delivered upon each:

“ Americans are better off than they were eight years ago, and, if you elect me President, you will be better off four years from now than you are today. “

--Vice President George Bush, Houston, Nov. 7, 1988

With this election-eve appeal, Bush cited the equation that had helped Ronald Reagan defeat then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980. But where Reagan asked the nation to think with its wallet in judging his predecessor, Bush went a step further, inviting such a judgment upon himself.

Indeed, with its unquenchable optimism, the Bush campaign often seemed to strut. Bush pronounced himself dissatisfied with the mere record growth of the 1980s. He vowed instead to pursue “growth that stays, that broadens and that touches, finally, all Americans . . . . Can we do it? Of course we can.” And even with unemployment at a low level, he set his sights on an extraordinarily ambitious job creation target. “Let me tell you more about the mission,” he said in setting the 30 million new-jobs goal over two presidential terms. “On jobs, my mission is 30 in 8.”

The vision spoke to a broader American confidence--and won an unmistakable electoral embrace. On no issue more than prosperity did voters hold high hopes for Bush, according to polls taken at the time. And on no other issue have expectations seemed so much to plunge. Only one in four Americans now approves of Bush’s handling of the economy, according to recent polls.

Whether voters are better off than they were when Bush was elected now appears doubtful. After inflation, new Commerce Department statistics show, the average person’s disposable income was only $103 more this year than in 1988. A separate category shows that family income declined by $212 between 1988 and 1990.

When voters are surveyed, the reviews are mixed. A recent Times Mirror poll found that 40% of those surveyed said they were better off than four years ago. But 43% said they were worse off--contrasted with only 20% who issued a similar negative verdict in 1987.

Part of the reason is the sluggish economy. Instead of the prosperity that Bush hoped would spread from the “hollows of Kentucky to the sunlit streets of Denver” have come recession, stagnation and widespread anxiety. Because of the slump, Bush’s job-creation goals have been shattered.

In his defense, Bush points out that some indicators remain good by historic standards. The so-called “misery index,” which combines the unemployment and inflation rates, stands at less than half its rate in 1980. But when it comes to the economy, voters are known more for short tempers than long memories. And, although Bush advisers say they are confident of a turnaround well before Election Day, they concede that they must overcome a sense of betrayal.

“ The Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again, and all I can say to them is: No new taxes, period! “

--Bush, GOP National Convention, New Orleans, Aug. 18, 1988

The pledge came with its own shrill stamp of authenticity, and it never failed to win applause. “Read my lips,” Bush told doubters. “No new taxes!” It was the catch phrase of his campaign--a promise of a presidency that would be different.

But the absoluteness that made “no new taxes, period” so appealing also made it dangerous. When Bush broke his promise after just 18 months, his insistence that he had made no such about-face did not leave many fooled.

His June, 1990, reversal on the tax issue permitted just what Bush had vowed to stop. As part of a budget deal with Congress, he opened the way for an increase in income taxes and other “revenue-enhancement” measures. The exact figures are in dispute, but no one disputes that, under Bush, Americans’ tax burden has increased.

It is clear that Bush abandoned his pledge only under heavy pressure. After standing his ground for more than a year, he found himself backed into a corner by congressional Democrats--and a budget deficit that in the 1990 fiscal year reached $220.4 billion. His choice came down to raising taxes or closing the government. But despite the deal he struck, the budget deficit has continued to grow, reaching $268.7 billion in the 1991 fiscal year. And what seemed the pragmatic course then gives headaches to his reelection advisers now. At minimum, it has plowed fertile ground for a challenge from the right.

Democrats may seek to exploit the reversal as a sign that Bush was less than candid. But as backers of the tax increase, they cannot say he was wrong.

To conservative Republicans, however, the step was a sellout. Already, commentator Patrick J. Buchanan and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke have used the issue as the centerpiece of their bids to wrest the nomination from Bush.

“ I will never let America be made weak again. “

--Bush, the American Legion, Louisville, Ky., Sept. 7, 1988

Perhaps more than on any other issue, candidate Bush emphasized national security. He embraced the Reagan formula of “peace through strength.” He vowed to seek sharp reductions in U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals. And he said he hoped to accelerate the “scope and momentum of the democratic revolution” around the world.

By common agreement, Bush’s performance in foreign affairs has been far more spectacular than even his most ardent supporters ever dreamed--largely because of the collapse of the Soviet empire, which disintegrated with a speed and completeness that virtually no one expected.

Partly as a result of the Soviet breakup, Bush has more than achieved the 50% reduction that he promised in U.S. and Soviet weapons. He has skillfully--if not always smoothly--managed U.S. relations with the governments of the Soviet Union and its emerging successors. Indeed, he has taken advantage of the thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations to leapfrog ahead of Democratic critics by announcing the most sweeping scaling back of nuclear readiness and deployments since the beginning of the nuclear age. Around the world, he has also ordered cutbacks in U.S. troop strength.

Bush also has made good on his commitment to keep the nation “strong and resolute in the world.” With the successful invasion of Panama in December, 1989, Bush used blunt military force to back up U.S. threats directed at that country’s dictator, Manuel A. Noriega, who is charged with running drugs. More recently, Bush has deftly used the post-Cold War vacuum to rally other countries to support U.S. foreign policy objectives.

The most spectacular example, of course, was the anti-Iraq coalition he welded to reverse Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. If Hussein’s stubborn grasp on power remains an embarrassment to the White House, the fact that the Persian Gulf War helped prevent Iraq from becoming a nuclear power demonstrated Bush’s resolve to carry out an anti-proliferation campaign pledge.

And, although its fate now hangs in grave doubt, the Bush-sponsored peace conference that brought Israel, the Arab states and Palestinians to the negotiating table for the first time marked a historic achievement.

“ Every one of our children deserves a first-rate school . . . . I will encourage merit schools. I will give more kids a head start. And I’ll make it easier to save for college. “

--Bush, New Orleans, Aug. 18, 1988

Bush vowed to become the education President, but he has only recently begun to work toward earning that title. By most standards, the President virtually ignored the issue during the first two years of his Administration.

He followed through initially on a campaign pledge to increase funds for the preschool Head Start program but froze the program in 1991, pleading budgetary constraints. And he met a second promise--to provide additional money for “magnet” schools, designed to attract youngsters to inner-city sites by offering superior educational programs--by increasing the percentage of local spending that the federal government would match.

But other Bush campaign pledges have received relatively short shrift. He has yet to unveil a promised “children’s tax-credit” program, proffered during the 1988 campaign, designed to help parents provide more care for their children and lay the foundation for their future success. And he has still not proposed his own version of a Democratic plan to create a special savings bond to help families save for their children’s college educations.

Last summer, in a burst of interest, Bush began promoting his America 2000 plan, which includes voluntary national testing for children in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades; creation of new kinds of schools to “break the mold” of old teaching techniques; rewarding better teachers with higher pay, and a proposal to enable parents to choose the schools their children attend. The goals-based plan has been embraced by more than 30 states.

But in all of these cases, the added monies that Bush is proposing are meager, and the President’s major effort has been to encourage the states to take on the job. Partly because of Washington’s own big budget deficit, Bush has yet to propose any massive new federal funding for education.

Part of the Administration’s slow start may have been because of the lackluster performance of the President’s first secretary of education, Lauro F. Cavazos. Cavazos’ more activist successor, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, is also more politically attuned and appears to have won Bush’s ear.

“ I am an environmentalist. “

--Bush, Erie Metropark, Mich., Aug. 31, 1988

When it came to the environment, candidate Bush made some heady promises. He would convene a conference on environmental issues. He would clean the air and stop ocean dumping. And he would ensure that there would be “no net loss” of the nation’s wetlands.

On paper, at least, Bush has fulfilled each of these pledges. Perhaps most important, he broke a decade-long stalemate in Congress to win passage of a new Clean Air Act, the most sweeping environmental statute ever put into law.

But the moves have fallen short of what some had been led to expect. Indeed, his operating strategy has generally been one of cautious pragmatism as he seeks to balance the often conflicting demands of business and environmentalists.

Bush had pledged to lead the world to a “new understanding of the importance of environmental issues.” But the White House used an international conference on global warming to emphasize how costly it would be to reduce emissions of “greenhouse” gases, which many--if not most--experts believe will cause changed weather patterns that could have devastating consequences.

And, at Bush’s order, the United States has been one of the last holdouts in an international push to set targets and timetables for cutting back on emissions of the gases.

Some scientists, meanwhile, have complained that Bush’s major wetlands proposal provides an unworkable approach to defining such areas. Conservationists predict that the new definition not only would allow the erosion of wetlands to continue, but also would remove half of the 106 million acres now designated as wetlands from eligibility.

Partly because of budgetary constraints, his proposals for cleaning up the nation’s nuclear facilities, expanding national parks and imposing tougher penalties on ocean dumping have been similarly modest. He also has opposed efforts to toughen standards for auto emissions.

Bush’s commitment to develop the first national energy strategy won applause from virtually all quarters. But when the plan finally emerged, environmentalists were incensed by proposals to simplify the licensing of nuclear power plants and to open a niche of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. The energy bill shaped from his strategy was blocked from reaching the Senate floor.

Even Bush’s implementation of the Clean Air Act has come under attack. The critics say that the Cabinet-level Council on Competitiveness, headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, by revising regulations has quietly gutted major sections of the bill intended to deal with pollution control, acid rain and other key issues. As a result, relations between the White House and key environmental groups have deteriorated significantly.

“ I’m the one who says a drug dealer who is responsible for the death of a policeman should be subject to capital punishment. “

--Bush, New Orleans, Aug. 18, 1988

On the stump, Bush pulled no punches in his zeal to be seen as tough on crime. His campaign commercials focused on Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who committed rape while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison.

His program was similarly specific. He would double the budget for existing prisons and would double capacity by converting unneeded military bases into additional prisons and by using assets seized from drug dealers to finance even more prison construction. He urged stiff new penalties for drug offenses, including the death penalty for those who committed drug-related murders. He declared war on drugs and later vowed: “This scourge will end.”

By and large, the Bush record has measured up to the promises. Bed space will have more than doubled by the end of this year, rising from 31,727 in 1989 to 69,152. And the prison budget has increased nearly 93%, from $1.069 billion in fiscal year 1988 to $2.06 billion in fiscal year 1992. Within the Justice Department, he created a new unit to combat gangs and violent crime. And his latest anti-crime bill, although still hung up in Congress, would add significantly to the list of federal crimes subject to the death penalty--a list already lengthened by previous Bush proposals.

But the promised war on drugs, aimed at epidemic cocaine use, has been far from a success. An early promise to establish a “war council” headed by the vice president was quickly scrapped; instead, Congress created the office of “drug czar.” Initially, under William J. Bennett, the position commanded a massive profile. But it has almost dropped from sight under his successor, former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez. A so-called Andean strategy aimed at attacking cocaine at its source--in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia--has shown little success, as have innovative efforts to use the military against foreign drug operations.

Indeed, a Defense Intelligence Agency estimate this year found that, despite more than a doubling of anti-drug spending, the supply of cocaine reaching the United States remained about the same. And, more ominously, a new government survey suggests that a five-year decline in drug use has come to an end, with sharp increases among hard-core drug users.

“ We must mount a comprehensive effort to reduce the cost and improve the quality of, and access to, health care in America. A Bush Administration will address this problem by controlling costs and providing more comprehensive coverage and Medicare. “

--Bush campaign position paper, summer, 1988

The sweeping rhetoric on health care has given way to a cautious approach. The Administration acknowledges that the increasing cost of health care and the lack of insurance for about 35 million Americans is an important problem. But Bush’s efforts so far on this issue have been minimal.

After unveiling a plan to allow low-income Americans to “buy into Medicaid” at bargain premiums, he never pursued it aggressively, and it succumbed to inattention in Congress. His major achievement has been in targeting more Medicare benefits to the needy, and he has proposed a plan to limit damages in medical malpractice cases.

More recently, however, the Administration has become more aggressive. Taken aback by the way Democrat Harris Wofford used the health care issue to capture a Pennsylvania Senate seat, the White House announced that Bush would use his State of the Union address later this month to unveil the outlines of a health care package.

But most analysts expect the Bush proposal to call for little more than tinkering with the current system. Most notably, the President in recent weeks has amplified his attacks on “socialistic” proposals that might establish a national health insurance program or require employers to provide health insurance for their employees.

“ I want a kinder, gentler nation. “

--Bush, New Orleans, Aug. 18, 1988

From the convention on, the “kinder, gentler” pledge became an ever-present, if poorly defined, theme of Bush’s campaign message. Drawing an implicit comparison to the Reagan Administration, Bush spoke of promoting a “new harmony” within the nation and vowed to use “gentle persuasion” in his dealings with Congress.

His performance has fallen somewhat short of that rhetoric. Although Bush has proposed sharp increases in aid for the homeless, there is little sign that such help has done much to relieve the problem. And, after speaking of his plans to extend an “opened hand,” he has tended to use it to strike at Congress, wielding the veto 24 times as his principal weapon.

On most key social legislation, the President has stood at odds with the Democratic majority in Congress. For months, he opposed even a modest increase in the minimum wage. He refused until the last minute to sign a landmark civil rights bill, creating confusion about his position on affirmative action.

The Administration also has done little to make good on a Bush campaign promise to “see that all American families are able to obtain decent, affordable housing.” The budget he submitted last February would have privatized public housing projects to enable tenants to buy their own homes. But it also proposed deep cuts in the budget for construction of new public housing units and other social programs, such as home energy assistance. In all, Bush sought to reduce net spending for low-income groups by about $600 million.

As the nation’s economic problems worsened this summer, Bush also dug in his heels in resisting Democrat-backed legislation that would have extended unemployment benefits for about 2 million Americans. By the time he reached a compromise with Congress and signed a modified bill, three months had passed, and the number of those whose benefits had run out had climbed by 1 million.

After first seeming unconcerned about the state of the economy, Bush in recent weeks began to play anew upon the “kinder, gentler” theme. He has insisted time and again that he really does care about those who are hurting.

When asked recently about the view that he spent too little time on economic matters, Bush said such a perception was unfair. But “much more important,” he said, in what could serve as a broader summary of his approach to those who may feel let down, “is for me to identify to the American people with the concept that I do care; I am concerned about it.”

The Bush Years: How the Nation Has Fared

JOBS

In the 1988 presidential campaign, George Bush set an ambitious goal for what he hoped would be two terms in office--the creation of 30 million jobs over 8 years. But the lingering recession has made that target virtually unobtainable, with the number of jobs growing by only about 3 million in 3 years. Here is the nation’s total employment, seasonally adjusted: 1988: 105,536,000

1989: 108,329,000

1990: 109,971,000

1991: 108,829,000*

- 11-month figure

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

INCOME

The recession also has checked the growth of personal disposable income. Here are the annual figures for the last four years, in 1987 dollars:

1988: $13,889

1989: $14,030

1990: $14,154

1991: $13,992*

* Based on first three quarters

Source: Commerce Department

“MISERY INDEX”

The so-called “misery index”--which combines unemployment and inflation rates--stands at about half what it was in 1980, the last time a Democrat was in the White House.

Misery Index Inflation Unemployment 1980 12.5 19.5 7.0 1988 04.4 9.8 5.4 1989 04.6 9.8 5.2 1990 06.1 11.5 5.4 1991 3.0* 9.7* 6.7*

* Estimate

Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States; Commerce Department.

SENTIMENT

In a 1988 speech, Bush said Americans would be better off in four years than they were at that time if he won the White House. But a recent poll found a significant change in how the public views its economic status compared to the past.

“Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

1987: Yes, 48%*; No, 20%*

1991: Yes, 40%; No, 43%

* In 1987, poll respondents were asked to compare their status with that of five years earlier.

Source: Times Mirror poll

Times staff writers John M. Broder, Ronald J. Ostrow, Michael Ross, Doyle McManus, James Gerstenzang, Rudy Abramson and Art Pine contributed to this story.