Lyndon Baines Bush?

By Michael Kramer

No one will ever say of George Bush what someone once said of Winston Churchill, that "he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." But Bush can surprise, especially when he remembers that nothing makes Americans feel better than some good old-fashioned Democratic sweet talk. Last year it was a kinder, gentler Inaugural, last week a State of the Union address that could have been delivered by Lyndon Johnson.

Ideologically, the President seemed back in the political center he inhabited proudly before expediency drove him to embrace Reaganism. All the hard-right touches were gone: not one rant against abortion, nary a plea for school prayer. Just a vision of a society where "the greatest gift is helping others."

Happy days are here again in George Bush's America. A place where "there's a job for everyone who wants one"; where "women working outside the home can be confident their children are in safe and loving care"; where the environment is clean, equal opportunity abounds, the disabled are part of the mainstream, the homeless "get the help they need," everyone "has a roof over his head," every child "makes the grade," the streets and schools are "drug-free," we all "confront and condemn racism and bigotry," and "no American is forgotten."

The Great Society II.

A dream? Hardly, said Bush. The same President who last year despaired that the nation has "more will than wallet" last week declared that "we'll do what it takes to invest in America's future . . . The money is there."

Where? George Bush, meet your budget, a good old-fashioned Republican document that unmasks the State of the Union as an exercise in sleight of mouth. As a true reflection of the President's will, Bush's budget barely funds many of the programs that could conform reality to rhetoric, and fairly guts many others.

It is not all dissonance, of course. Some domestic initiatives will be adequately funded, and one favorite, Head Start, is slated for a whopping $500 million infusion.

Spend a buck to save six. It sounds like a con man's come-on. In fact, it is a measure of Head Start's success. Studies show that for every dollar spent on a disadvantaged Head Start child, the nation saves six dollars it would otherwise shell out later in the form of additional health, welfare and crime- control expenditures.

The half a billion figure reflects a White House decision that surprised even Wade Horn, the federal overseer of Head Start. His office was expecting a modest increase, perhaps a tenth as much. "There are two reasons for that number," concedes a Bush adviser, "and both are purely political. First, $500 million rolls off the tongue nicely. It's round and big. Second, a figure that size helps silence those who scoff at the boss as the 'education President.' Think of it as a pre-emptive strike that deflects attention from an overall education budget that won't even keep up with inflation."

So what? If the end result is good, why should Bush's motives matter?

Because his plan falls victim to the old and accurate Republican criticism of L.B.J. -- that Bush too is mindlessly throwing money at a social problem.

There are about half a million unserved four-year-olds who need Head Start and many more three-year-olds who could benefit from earlier intervention if the program were well financed. But using $500 million merely to increase participation by 180,000 kids -- as the Administration's budget proposes -- is exactly the wrong way to go.

What the Bushies' body-count mentality ignores is what almost everyone professionally involved with Head Start knows: the program's quality is falling, and will fall further if 180,000 slots are added without improving inadequate facilities, poor transportation and abysmal salaries. Teacher retention, especially, has become a megaproblem, for the simple reason that almost half of all Head Start instructors earn less than $10,000 a year; thus they are continually lured to public school jobs that average more than $28,000 a year.

"By simply adding more kids," says the National Head Start Association's Don Bolce, "we could end up like the S&Ls. By functioning on the cheap, we will eventually so severely underfund Head Start's ability to deliver quality care that we will be forced to spend even more to fix the problems shortsightedly created."

Where to from here? Most likely, politics as usual: Congress will insist on a more enlightened use of Head Start's appropriation, and the President will | someday campaign against the Democrats for failing to accommodate the larger number of kids he was ready to help.