What's in It for Us?

By JON D. HULL DAYTON

BINGO NIGHT AT THE MONTGOMERY County Fairgrounds was passing slowly. But when a visitor started asking questions about Bill Clinton's plans to raise taxes, voices rose and necks were craned to catch the commotion. "Look, just because I have a little money to gamble with doesn't mean I can afford any more energy taxes or income taxes or any damn taxes," said Doug Smith Jr., 46, whose thick and callused hands testify to his part-time job as a carpet installer. "Enough!" Heads nodded up and down along the wooden table, one of 40 set up in the brightly lit but smoky meeting hall where about 300 mostly working- class gamblers were quietly plotting for a piece of the $3,500 pot. "I voted for Clinton because I figured he'd stick it to the fat cats," said auto mechanic Steve Cordow, 32. "If he wants any more money from me, he's going to have to hit up everyone who makes more than me first. And that includes just about everybody, even my friend Doug here."

Amid the laughter, Cordow spontaneously slammed his palm down on the table, causing a near panic as the players scrambled to reorganize their bingo cards. Tightly creased expressions reflected the seriousness of the occasion. Among ! the lucky charms and trinkets on display: six coins, one family photograph, one clay figurine, two rock crystals and 13 toy trolls. Two of the trolls belong to Smith. He confessed, "I need the money."

So does Bill Clinton. Judging from the mood among voters in Montgomery County, most Americans are quite willing to make the sacrifices that Clinton is calling for, especially if the money is earmarked to pay off the deficit, improve schools or create jobs. But there is one consistent caveat: nobody wants to go first.

Situated among the rolling hills of southwestern Ohio, Montgomery County is an uncanny microcosm of the rest of the U.S., right down to the renewed obsession with trolls. Last September TIME profiled the region when it was targeted by both the Clinton and Bush campaigns as a critical swing county in a critical state. Among the 96,000 registered Democrats, 66,000 Republicans and 173,000 independents, concern over the economy won out over the county's latent conservatism. Clinton took 41% of the vote, vs. Bush's 40% and Perot's 18%.

Now, as campaign promises transform into presidential proposals, sometimes with startling differences, voters in Montgomery County are starting to squirm like patients in a dentist's waiting room. Everyone is resigned to a little pain, but all are praying they can avoid a full-blown root canal. "Basically, I'm preparing to have to dig deeper into my pockets in the near future," says Sherwin Eisman, the Republican mayor of middle-class Huber Heights (pop. 40,000), near Dayton. He fears that additional federal taxes will inspire local voters to reject any attempts to raise local levies, including a May ballot proposal to raise the city income tax from 1% to 1.25% for additional fire and police services. He says, "People tell me that they are sick and tired of taxes."

True, but many Montgomery County voters are even more fed up with bad schools, murderous streets, pink slips and health-care nightmares. "People are willing to pay more as long as they understand where the money is going," says Dayton Mayor Richard Dixon, a Democrat. As proof, he notes that local voters have approved three tax increases in a row.

Dixon hopes his city will get a share of Clinton's proposed economic- stimulus plan. Once a thriving industrial gem, Ohio's sixth largest city has been crippled by the loss of tens of thousands of blue-collar jobs since the 1970s and the flight of white citizens to the suburbs. Though countywide unemployment stands at 6.1%, a full point below the national average, job insecurity is endemic, particularly given the region's heavy dependence on General Motors, which employs about 20,000 workers at eight plants.

At the Dayton Convention Center, autoworkers Tom Brock, Lonnie Gaines and Tom Burns prepared a powertrain exhibit for the annual Dayton GM Auto Show. Together they have clocked 75 years with GM, but next year their plant, which employs about 500 workers, is scheduled to move to Mexico. "If we keep shipping the jobs to Mexico, five years from now there won't be anybody in this country to buy these cars," says Brock.

Gaines voted for Clinton; Brock for Perot. Burns won't say. But all three are deeply worried by what they see happening to the economy and to the social fabric of their communities. "We are sitting on dynamite," said Gaines. All three are willing to pay more taxes so long as the burden is distributed fairly, meaning that the rich pay significantly more. "We just don't have the tax write-offs that the rich people do," said Burns. He advises the President to ignore his opponents and get cracking. "The fact is that Clinton got elected on his ideas, so as long as he follows through with them I say he can ignore all the special-interest groups he is going to offend."

In a roomful of Montgomery County voters, the opinions on how to balance the budget outnumber University of Dayton sports fans. But nearly 60% of these voters supported either Clinton or Perot, and their ballots were backed up by fears that the U.S. is dangerously off course. "Drugs are talking over, our cities are falling apart, and our children can't get good jobs," says Willie Thorpe, president of Local 801 of the International Union of Electrical Workers. "Got it?" James Sullivan, the assistant director of the county Board of Elections, traveled to Washington for the Inauguration, but now he is getting impatient. "Hell, this country is in real trouble," he said, "and we're talking about gays and nannies?"

Even the down-and-outs are willing to give something up -- if they can trade it for something that offers them more hope. Wesley Helfinstine, 35, sat in the welfare office in downtown Dayton last week with his girlfriend Tracey Marcum, 27, shaking his head and clutching a sci-fi paperback called Ten Years to Doomsday. Both are unemployed, and Marcum is applying for emergency medical assistance. They also need $243 to get the electricity turned back on in their apartment. "Would somebody please tell me why we are still sending money to the foreigners?" asked Helfinstine. Despite their hardships, both would support tougher welfare requirements, as long as welfare payments are replaced by job opportunities. "You get so burned out trying to find a job, and then you get sucked into this welfare business and you're stuck," said Marcum.

Yet cutting welfare for the poor is a lot less explosive than reducing entitlements for the elderly. News that Clinton may try to tamper with Social Security sent shudders through the Greater Dayton senior citizen center, even though most of the regulars are too poor to be affected by any increase in taxes paid on benefits. "Every President tries to stick his hand into our pockets. But I worked my hands to the bone to earn my Social Security," said Isabel Mejia, 79, pausing from her volunteer work, in which she rolls plastic eating utensils into paper napkins. And don't call her stingy: last Christmas she and her fellow elderly collected 25 baskets of goods for the Salvation Army. That said, she wants Clinton to slash the deficit and wishes him "lots of luck."

Others hope that Clinton will deliver on his promise to help young people get ahead. Last fall Stuart O'Dell, 19, registered 503 voters out in front of the Wal-Mart store where he works. Because Clinton won Montgomery County by fewer than 3,200 votes, O'Dell likes to think he helped put Clinton over the top. In return, he expects the President to push through his plan to help students go to college in exchange for some form of community service, a promise that Clinton has already scaled back somewhat. "I've managed to save up $1,900 so far from my job, but I figure that will pay for only one semester," he says. So for now, O'Dell mans the electronics department at Wal-Mart each day, listens attentively to the news from Washington -- and waits.