Clinton Radio Address Warns of Economic Sacrifice : Budget: Five-minute talk emphasizes raising taxes for the wealthy. Rostenkowski says higher levies will probably spread to the middle class.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton, using his first presidential radio address to sound a warning of sacrifices to come, said Saturday that his economic program will require courage to do “something no generation has ever had to do before.”

Laying the groundwork for the package of spending cuts and tax increases he plans to unveil in his Feb. 17 State of the Union Address, Clinton said this generation of Americans must make investments in people and technology while at the same time cutting the “enormous federal deficit before it chokes off our ability to invest in our future and undermines your living standards and those of your children.”

Clinton said the greatest burden will be borne by the rich, whom he described as “those who got the most and gave the least during the past dozen years.”

“While most Americans paid higher taxes on lower real incomes, the privileged few paid lower taxes on much higher real incomes,” Clinton said in his five-minute address. “We’re going to ask them now to pay their fair share, along with corporations whose tax burden has been dramatically reduced in the last 12 years.”

The President’s speech set forth what he described as “guiding principles,” but few details. In general, they were themes he had stressed throughout his presidential campaign.

In the Republican response to Clinton’s address, Florida Sen. Connie Mack insisted that “higher taxes have never helped the economy and never will.”

While Clinton emphasized higher taxes on the wealthy, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee said tax increases probably would spread to the middle class through higher energy taxes.

Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) said in a television interview Saturday that “everyone has to come up” with additional money to help reduce the federal deficit and pay for the job-creation programs Clinton proposes.

The President noted that he is looking close to home for ways to control the cost of government.

“Starting with my own people, I’ll be making big cuts in the White House staff, cutting payrolls and perks and privileges,” Clinton vowed. “I want to set an example so that I can take the fight to the rest of the government to eliminate unnecessary commissions, reduce the federal payroll and get rid of needless luxuries like posh dining rooms.”

Rostenkowski, speaking on Cable News Network, said he supported higher income taxes on those making more than $200,000 a year, endorsing Clinton’s proposal to raise the top tax rate from 31% to 36%. But the Ways and Means Committee chairman also backed a tax increase on all forms of energy, including gasoline and home heating oil, that would hit Americans.

“I think that it has to be a broad-based involvement,” he said.

He said the Administration should stick to its goal of trimming the federal budget deficit by about $145 billion over four years. Some Clinton advisers, frustrated by continuing high unemployment, are arguing that deficit reduction should be deferred in favor of costly new job-creation programs.

“I do think that anything less than a $145 billion . . . reduction in the deficit is folly,” Rostenkowski said.