The State of the Union: So Who's Minding The Store?

By MARGARET CARLSON

No speaker is more compelling than one who believes what he is saying. As the camera pulled in tight on the President's face during last Tuesday's State of the Union address, the millions of people tuning in saw a President who was finally projecting the vision that all the high-priced media handlers had been unable to supply for him. With images drawn from World War II, when as a young Navy pilot he flew 58 combat missions, Bush spoke convincingly of a cause that is just, moral and right; of the dangers of appeasement; of the need for sacrifice so that "the strong are neither tempted nor able to intimidate the weak." While he altered Churchill's "finest hour" to the rather less ringing "defining hour," the President did make a stab at the British Prime Minister's flinty eloquence as he prepared the country for a war that could prove long and bloody. "Let future generations understand the burden and blessings of freedom," he declared. "Let them say, 'We stood where duty required us to stand.' " His words of praise for U.S. troops in the gulf brought the audience to its feet and touched off a stirring ovation.

But when Bush moved from the state of the world to the state of the country, he left his vision at the border. The domestic side of the speech, with its reform plans, blueprints, comprehensive strategies and dynamic program life cycles, sounded as if it had been cobbled together by a committee of tightfisted accountants. There was no hint of significant spending cuts or new taxes to finance the plans, and not even a mention of the deficit, which has risen from $150 billion to a projected $300 billion since Bush took office. Yes, there is a recession -- but it is regional and temporary, and we will grow our way out of it. As for the banks, the President said, "There has been too much pessimism," as if there were something to cheer about in the $500 billion collapse of the savings and loan industry.

Anticipating criticism for shirking problems at home, the President did not stint on the time he spent talking about them: nearly half of his 47 minutes was given over to domestic affairs. But he offered a list of vague ideas, some that have been kicking around Republican circles for more than a decade. His proposal to turn over unspecified and underfunded federal programs to the states is a cross between Nixon's revenue sharing and Reagan's New Federalism, and solves the problems of neither approach. Proposed middle-class party favors like tax-free family savings accounts and penalty-free withdrawals from IRAs for first-time home buyers have already been soundly rejected by Congress. Even the proposals that sounded new were not: Republicans have long been willing to give up political-action committees, which favor incumbents (and in Congress, that means Democrats), preferring individual contributions from wealthy givers, which favor the G.O.P. And the idea of term limitations is a Republican dream, a way to give a League of Women Voters gloss to possibly reversing the Democratic control of Congress, which enjoys a 96% re-election rate.

The proposal to cut the capital-gains tax rate is deja voodoo economics all over again. What is novel this time is that the plan is dead on arrival. Bush needs to placate conservatives, who are annoyed that he so easily gave up on their pet project during last fall's budget battle. But by tossing the issue to a blue-ribbon commission, the President has ensured its slow but certain demise. Resisting the temptation to court conservatives on emotional and divisive social issues, he made no mention of abortion, flag burning or affirmative action. Nor did he raise the controversial question of military spending, except to call for shoring up a "refocused" Star Wars program in light of the successes scored by the Patriot antimissile system in the gulf. Overall military spending, however, is likely to decrease, according to the 1992 budget being submitted this week by the Pentagon, which calls for a $3.9 billion cut in projected 1992 defense outlays of $298.9 billion.

Although the populace is more willing to ask what it can do for the country than at any time in three decades, Bush only talked about sacrifice on the battlefield, not on the home front. Whether out of fear of linkage between the war and oil, or a wariness of doing anything reminiscent of the sweater- wearing, thermostat-lowering Carter Administration, Bush devoted just 30 seconds to the crucial question of energy policy.

That left him no time to address the recommendation of some Energy Department and White House budget officials for a gas tax big enough to encourage fuel conservation and fund the costly search for alternative sources (every penny a gallon raises an extra billion dollars). Bush ducked the issue even though he is well aware that the public knows U.S. troops would not be fighting in the Persian Gulf if the region were the world's leading producer of tapioca rather than the repository of 70% of the world's oil reserves. In a nationwide survey taken last month by bipartisan pollsters, oil was most often cited as the main reason for the U.S. presence in the Middle East. The U.S. is more reliant on foreign oil today than at any time since the 1973 oil shock; imports have doubled since then, and last year accounted for more than half the trade deficit. Though last fall's budget deliberations did produce a token 5 cents-per-gal. increase in federal gasoline taxes, the possibility of further levies may have been scuttled when Republican pollster Robert Teeter found that Reagan Democrats were the idea's fiercest opponents.

For now, Bush has good reason to indulge his intrinsic indifference to such things as block grants and toxic-waste disposal. Being Commander in Chief is more glorious and important than being commander of enterprise zones. But without presidential leadership, inertia is likely to set in on the home front. Television screens flicker throughout the Federal Triangle as bureaucrats play CNN generals rather than go about the unglamorous work of governing. Reducing America's appetite for foreign oil, finding an affordable way to restore civility to cities that resemble war zones, giving the 20% of America's children who live in poverty a way out, funding medical care for the 37 million Americans who have no health insurance, preserving the water, the air and the land for the next generation -- all demand attention, and all may prove every bit as difficult as liberating Kuwait.

With reporting by Dan Goodgame and Hays Gorey/Washington