President salutes U.S. Olympic athletes

CHULA VISTA, Calif. - Momentarily breaking stride in a political fund-raising marathon, President Clinton saluted U.S. Olympic athletes Friday and said they bring out the best the nation has to offer.

''We appreciate you, we thank you and we are very, very proud of you,'' Clinton told Olympians and Olympic hopefuls.

Clinton said the nation will follow the athletes ''in the magic of the Olympics moment. ... I want you to know you have already made your country very proud.''

The president said he is issuing an executive order to bar discrimination in federally conducted education and training programs. He also advocated a series of steps to encourage youthful Americans to become and remain physically active.

He toured the 150-acre U.S. Olympic Training Center and watched athletes train for Olympic competition in archery, pole vaulting, the triple jump and race walking. All are hoping for a chance to compete in the Olympic Games at Sydney, Australia, in September.

Opened in 1995 and built from the ground up as an Olympics training facility, the center is located in rolling country south of San Diego near the Mexican border. It also offers training in rowing, canoeing, soccer, cycling, track and a variety of field events.

Clinton's Olympics speech was the only nonpolitical event in a three-day fund-raising sprint in Arizona and California. He planned 10 speeches at political receptions and dinners, raising millions of dollars for presumptive presidential candidate Al Gore and the Democratic National Committee.

Clinton headed to Los Angeles to raise more campaign money, both for the vice president's campaign and for Democrats trying to regain control of Congress after six years of GOP rule.

First in Phoenix and then in San Diego, Clinton took a prominent cheerleading role for Gore and jabbed at Texas Gov. George W. Bush's promises to spend the nation's burgeoning projected budget surplus on tax cuts and favored programs.

Clinton issued his warnings amid reports that his administration will announce next week that new projections show budget surpluses reaching nearly $2 trillion over the next decade.

The president's message: It's wrong for Bush, the presumptive GOP presidential candidate, to make lavish spending promises based on paper projections that may never turn into hard cash.

''I don't think we ought to risk the whole projected surplus on tax cuts and long-term spending commitments,'' Clinton said of the Bush proposals as he delivered the day's fourth and final fund-raising speech at a sit-down dinner for major contributors,

''I think it's a risky strategy and it's not working,'' Clinton said. ''We worked a long time to just turn this thing around, and we don't just want to squander it again.''

''I say again, this surplus is projected,'' Clinton said, at an earlier fund-raiser. ''We don't have this money yet. How in the world can we give it away?''

At every speech the president tried various versions of this line: ''You don't have to go out and say anything bad about the Republicans; all you have to do is tell the truth about the differences between the two parties. And if you tell the truth and the people listen, the Democrats will win.''