European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 10, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Thursday. February 10, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 17 1 Whitewater Whitewash where s the villain Walter r. Mears the Chart looks like a Maze names linked by lines that interlock and overlap in All directions with president Clinton in the Middle. Republicans Call it the Whitewater family tree  unrelenting but so far frustrated Effort to make the Case a cutting Issue. The very complexity of their diagram 50 names in a Maze of lines is one Rea son. They be got no Arena in which to Pur sue and dramatize questions raised about the investments the Clinton say they made and lost in the failed Ozark land Deal. Nor is there a villain they can cast As the heavy. The financier involved in Thi Scase is not a haughty fat cat he s broke sick and already tried and acquitted of fraud. None of that dispels the questions republicans have raised As grounds for the congressional investigations that majority democrats Are refusing. But it will take More than questions to make Whitewater into White a Ternate the Label some House republicans want applied. Indeed while that argument has been going on Clinton s approval ratings have been going up to 58 percent in a poll a week ago. That Gallup Survey for can and Usa today showed no significant change in the number of people who see the president As honest and trustworthy,52 percent. The Clinton have emphatically denied doing anything wrong. The president has grudgingly agreed to have a special counsel look into the Case of Whitewater development co. And the later failure of a savings and loan run by the Clinton partner in the Whitewater land Deal. The questions involve the possibility of regulatory favors while Clinton was governor suggestions that so Money might have been diverted to pay off Campaign debts and the involvement of Hillary Rodham Clinton As a Little Rock lawyer. Rumor and innuendo says House speaker Thomas s. Foley a Wash. Serious questions of possible wrong doing says a memo of suggested speech making Points from the Senate Whitewash White Republican policy committee. Either Way with a former Republican . Attorney from new York investigating As special counsel the democrats have a ready rebuttal to continued re publican demands for a congressional in Quiry. Let him do his Job they say. There la be time for hearings later if Needle. The counsel Robert b. Fiske jr., said he almost certainly would question the president and his wife under oath As part of his investigation. Congressional investigators could t. And while the White House had t wanted a special counsel having one enables the administration to deflect persistent Whitewater questioning. To that extent it helps now. Whether it hurts later depends on Fiske s findings and there s no telling when hell be done. Republican congressional leaders had proposed a special joint committee to investigate but dropped that when the Spe Cial counsel was appointed a step the also had urged. Now the gop pressure is for hearings in the House and Senate banking committees. Both chairmen have refused to conduct Whitewater so hearings but there apparently will be committee ses Sions on the management of the Agency that oversees the savings and loan bail out. Those Are supposed to be held twice a year and they Are overdue. For republicans that will offer a Way into the Whitewater Case they will be Able to raise questions about Madison guaranty savings & loan shut Down by the government in 1989 and bailed out at a Cost of More than $47 million. In the House committee republicans have a right to Call witnesses and rep. Jim Leach of Iowa who has had his own investigators at work said he intends to do just that. Still the opening would be Brief not the Long close look republicans have demanded. And not enough to make suspicions into issues that would resound politically if indeed that can be done at All. That s particularly irksome to republicans who saw their administrations under frequent investigation Over 12 years in the White House. Sen. Robert j. Dole the Republican Leader said that happened at least 18 times. But democrats won t investigate democrats he complained although that is hardly a Surprise ending. " c the associated press Stockman s new Rosy scenario stars guess who it May or May not be Welcome news to president Clinton. But the most upbeat analysis of what lies ahead for America under his policies comes from none other than David Stockman the architect of the Reagan administration budgets that the democrats loved to hate. Stockman now a new York investment banker showed up in Washington recently with an economic forecast that he acknowledged is brighter and shinier even than those he produced As Reagan s budget director in the Early 80s, which democrats derided As Rosy  at a conference in Washington Stockman Drew a picture of steady economic growth through the end of the decade with Little or no threat of inflation. A budget deficit sinking to a comfortable and infinitesimal fraction of the nation s annual economic output. Health care costs under control especially if con Gress passes a stripped Down version of the Clinton plan. To be sure the Stockman forecast was greeted with scepticism by some of the economists politicians and business leaders at the Daylong conference sponsored by the private committee for a responsible fed eral budget. To the leaders of that group whose Pur pose is prodding Congress and the administration to take further Steps to Cut Federal spending and reduce future deficits it was not a particularly Welcome Mes Sage. As Carol Cox wait the director of the group re marked one of my Board members said you have to prick that balloon " of dangerous optimism that Stock Man had floated. Disconcerting people is almost Stockman s Trade Mark. He is grayer now than he was As a 34-year-old budget Whiz in 1981, but he still has a teen Ager s zest for pulling intellectual stunts that outrage his elders. Back then the budget director s Cle verness angered congressional committee chairmen twice his age even Reagan was briefly upset when Stockman confessed to the Washington Post s Wil Liam Greider that he knew his budget and tax plan contained Many a deficit swelling Trojan  but his experience with the Blackstone group a High powered investment outfit has Only enhanced Stockman s exuberant self Confidence. From his elevated Wall Street Perch Stockman looks Down on Clintono mics and finds it Good. He sees a "2-by-2 Economy through the end of the decade meaning 2 percent real growth compounding year after year accompanied by minimal 2 percent inflation. The vicious debt Cycle of the 1980s" is being replaced by a virtuous Cycle of personal and corporate debt repay ment in the 90s. Business is self financing both expand David s. Broder Sion and re engineering at a very rapid rate without putting a squeeze on credit markets. The result is a Supply Side recovery in which american firms Are becoming once again the world s most efficient producers of everything from autos to semiconductors leaving the vaunted japanese in their Wake. As Export markets expand in Europe and Asia this new american Industrial juggernaut will be superbly positioned to clobber the Competition. Inflation is hardly a worry. Because . Firms have added so much productive capacity even while reducing their work forces there s Little upward pressure on wages. Further you can expect government policy worldwide to choke off inflation. The three great Cen trial Banks in the United states Germany and Japan serve geriatric  As the populations age political pressure to create new jobs is replaced by pres sure to protect savings. The result a mass constituency for fighting  budget deficits arc soon to join yesterday s worries. Barring War or Domestic disaster the share of the Gross Domestic product allocated to government spending for Cash retirement benefits should remain stable while defense and Domestic discretionary programs decline under Clinton s budget. Ahead lies a Long period of fiscal stability probably running until 2020, when the baby Boomer retirement wave has hit. Thus Saith David the Stockman. And you All know about his Crystal Ball. C the Washington Post