European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 18, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                V tuesday May 18, 1993 commentary. The stars and stripes Page 15 Clinton in t unique in having problems with focus   Valter Mears a lot is happening the president said insisting that he was hot adrift directionless or unfocused. Not All of it Good but a  that was George Bush Early in his single term dealing with a question new presidents had faced before. There s pattern Chough to suggest that the focus Flap president Clinton is facing now May be an occupational Hazard in the springtime of a new administration. We be got the focus again on the Economy " Clinton said after his Campaign style swing to Ohio find Illinois. I think people do not want to Sec the country continue to wander and  i need to get the Public focused Back on the big issues he had said earlier. And before that he d con ceded that his own focus needed tightening. In Washington we re told that the most important thing to do is not More than one thing at a time he said in Cleveland last monday but added that also can make it easier for the opposition to Stop a program. Despite All the self and system analysis built into the sales Campaign that is taking the president to the West coast this week his Agenda is not significantly More crowded than those of prior administrations. His prob lems Are the hard ones deficit control health care re form and an Economy that in t yet perking. Every Day i meet with my staff and i say Send me an easy one " he joked. I m still  the easy ones Don t get to the president. Still Clinton s problems probably have More to do with strategy priorities and particularly with the expectations stirred by his own past promises than with the Agenda itself. His list is ambitious but hardly overwhelming rang ing from Campaign Reform to a welfare overhaul to the National service and College loan programs he promised in 1992. He said hell tackle crime and violence but later. I be already tried to do too much according to the  but he had promised the voters that by this time they would see a burst of action unprecedented in modern history. I knew when i got there it was t going to happen overnight he says now. I tried to make it happen  Clinton has had Only one outright defeat on the jobs and economic stimulation program blocked by Senate republicans. That probably could have been avoided with timely Compromise instead he opted for a hard line raising the political stakes in the process. We lost we one Bill and a lot of people think it s like the last Days of Pompeii he complained in a new York radio inter View on wednesday. If you re going to fight for change you be got to be prepared to lose a few As Well As win  his Job approval ratings in the Public opinion polls have slipped into the mid-40 percent Range lower than those of his three predecessors at this Point in their terms. He s been told by a senior Democrat that he needs to do More to generate Public support for his tax increase proposals. He s agreed to compromises and he s under pressure for More. Hence his Effort to make the Case to the country and reclaim Campaign style momentum. It s happened before. Even Ronald Reagan who began with the politically simpler aim of cutting taxes had to accept some com Promise. While the Reagan strategy is cited now As a Model of single Issue attention to reaganomics he put More on the Agenda including deregulation govern ment reorganization a plan to Aid the automobile Industry and More. His intervention in Al Salvador was likened to the Early Days of Vietnam a comparison echoed on Clinton s Bosnia policy ideas. Reagan s poll ratings were slipping too. The assassination attempt on March 30, 1981, changed All that silencing the critics. When the Mccu. Crating president went before Congress nearly a month Latch his program was on track to enactment that summer. Democrat Jimmy Carter now judged to have tried too much was pushing sonic of those same Steps Clin ton advocates among them business tax incentives and Public works jobs an overhaul of the welfare sys tem comprehensive health care Reform political re form to include Public financing of congressional elec Tion campaigns Energy taxes aimed at curbing consumption. Go Back and look at history Bush said in 1989 when he was being criticized As directionless. It kind of goes in  c Tho associated Prosa Clinton tax plans provoking Industry worries the Dean of St. Paul s Cathedral knew How to Lodge a credible tax protest. When in 1294 Edward i summoned the clergy to his presence and demanded half their Revenue the Good Dean dropped dead on the spot. As the Taxa Holic Clinton administration struggles to gov Ern this Taxa Hob in nation it is provoking protests not quite As stirring As the Deans but which should be heeded. Consider the Case of the proposed Energy tax begin Ning with the Alu Minum Industry As reported by Paul Klebnikov in Forbes. Russia desperate for hard currency is flooding the Market with aluminium. Its exports Are up about fivefold since 1988, and the world Price has plummeted. American aluminium companies for which Energy averages 30 percent of costs Felt especially menaced by Clinton s Energy tax. It would have been piled on top of the mounting costs of complying with the 1990 Amend ments to the clean air act which Are expected to add 5 percent to the Cost of Coal fired electricity by the end of the decade. Alcoa the world s largest aluminium company expected that the Energy Lux would add 5 percent or $100 million a year to the Cost of its . Smelting oper George will aliens. If so Alcoa would have been even More at a competitive disadvantage with producers in the Middle East latin America and elsewhere where Energy is cheaper and environmental a is Are less burdensome. The aluminium Industry s plight or its talented lobbyists so softened the Stony hearts on the House ways and Means committee that the Bill voted out thurs Day largely exempted the aluminium Indus try and a few others from the tax. Already it is Clear that if. An Energy tax is passed it will look like a Lacy doily a mesh of Loop holes. But the aluminium Industry s worries Are not Over. Alcoa produces 90 percent of the aluminium bought by Boeing. But Boeing is cutting aluminium purchases 35 percent to 40 percent this year. One reason is the condition of the airline Industry collective losses of $10.5 billion since 1990. While the Clinton administration s Industrial policy deep thinkers Are pondering How to Succour to the airline and aerospace Indus tries the president is trying to pass an Energy tax injurious to both. Airlines Are buying fewer air planes partly because passenger growth has been anaemic. Price resistance has mounted As new technologies such As video conferencing and fax machines have provided alternatives to business travellers carrying pieces of paper to meetings hither and Yon. Furthermore the pruning of Middle management by . Companies has pruned Many of the business travellers whose purchases of full fare tickets have subsidized bargain fares for Leisure travellers. An Energy tax would make matters worse. The Clinton administration already agrees to exempt airline fuel for International flights. And with democrats having Only an 11-9 advantage on the Senate s tax writing finance committee every commit tee Democrat has leverage for prying con Cessions from the administration. Already the committee s chair Man new York s Daniel Patrick Moynihan joined by the majority Leader Maine s George j. Mitchell has won exemption of Home heating Oil much used in the Northeast from the proposal to tax Oil products at a substantially higher rate than Coal or natural Gas. Why that higher rate perhaps vice president Gore the keeper of the planet thinks the world is rapidly running out of Oil. And perhaps the administration which knows so much thinks America is import ing too much Oil.  record in 1950 known world reserves were 76 billion barrels a 20-year Supply at consumption rates current then. Between 1950 and 1992 the world used More than 600 billion barrels. Today there Are known reserves of almost one trillion barrels about 47 years of con sumption at current rates. The administration s own estimates suggest that the Energy tax would reduce . Dependence on foreign imports Only from 56 percent to 55 percent and the administration is probably underestimating the injurious Impact of the tax on Domestic production Kent Conrad a finance committee Democrat from North Dakota has stud ies purporting to prove that the tax would Cost North Dakota farm families aver age annual income $17,600 $1,200 a year. Perhaps Conrad will be mollified by the action of the ways and Means com Mittee in partially exempting gasoline and diesel fuels used by Farmers. Industrial Ohio the third highest con Sumer of Energy among the 50 states Esti mates that its Energy Bill would increase $1.3 billion annually. The president of that state s chamber of Commerce says that if the tax is enacted some of the state s industries steel aluminium mining and Glass face a struggle for survival and severe  what would have been bad for the Alu Minum Industry and for Farmers will be bad for industries and individuals less potently represented in Congress. The Energy tax one of the largest components of Clinton s deficit reduction package almost certainly would depress Job creation and eco nomic growth and hence would enlarge the deficit. The Energy tax is the worst idea Well the worst idea about taxes the administration will have until mrs Clinton proposes her even More whopping tax Bill or health care. The Energy lax May be Defeated in con Gress by a coalition of republicans joined by nervous democrats especially those from farming and Energy producing states. If the tax is passed some companies and the recovery and some political careers May do what the Dean of St. Paul s did. C tha Washington pit pc