WASHINGTON -- Stepping from the sidelines into the debate over federal spending, U.S. President Bill Clinton laid out a route to a balanced budget that would take three years longer than the Republican seven-year plan, but follows the Republican direction in dramatically scaling back much of what government does.


Clinton described the broad outline of his plan in a five-minute televised address to the nation that amounted to a reversal of the budget plan he submitted in February. In that plan he proposed spending that would have increased the deficit into the next century.


Clinton said Tuesday night he and Republicans now agree on the need to balance the budget, but he argued their route to that goal would cut programs for the needy, for children and for the elderly too quickly while providing tax cuts for the wealthy.


"We shouldn't cut education or Medicare just to make room for a tax cut for people who don't need it," he said. "My plan will cut the deficit year after year. It will balance the budget without hurting our future."


Clinton listed as his first priority preserving education spending, and said he wanted to control Medicare costs and target tax cuts to the middle class. He argued that a longer period of time was needed to balance the budget to protect the economy and shield the needy from too swift a series of cuts.


While his plan differed from those Republicans have approved in House and Senate, Clinton said both parties must debate with "openness and civility" to reach an agreement.


The president's new plan would balance the budget by 2005, while Republican plans would achieve balance three years earlier. Some of the big-ticket cuts that would help Clinton reach his balanced budget goal, in defense and in many popular programs, are postponed until well into the next century.


During the first seven years, when the GOP would achieve about $1 trillion in savings to wipe out the deficit, Clinton's plan would save roughly half that amount. Clinton would reduce future spending for Medicare, the health insurance for the elderly, by $127 billion over that period, or less than half of what the House and Senate favor, while cutting Medicaid for the poor by $54 billion, or less than a third of the House and Senate proposals.


After suffering a bruising setback last year in his effort to reform the health care system, the president unveiled a far more modest proposal Tuesday night that he said would expand coverage, cut the deficit and impose no new cost increases on Medicare beneficiaries. Clinton would preserve the original middle-class tax cut he proposed earlier this year, which would cost about a quarter of the House GOP proposal to cut $354 billion over seven years.


The president's plan also projects a savings of more than $170 billion in interest on the debt over the next seven years, the same as the Republicans.


Republican leaders Tuesday welcomed Clinton aboard the balanced- budget wagon, but most pointed out his tardy arrival.


Many Democrats did not want the president to deprive them of their strategy of attacking cuts in sensitive programs to pay for tax cuts. But other Democrats applauded the new proposal as what Senator Frank Lautenberg called "an improvement over Republican budgets."


The senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee took a startling public slap at the Democratic president.


Representative David Obey, reflecting some of the Democratic congressional frustration over Clinton's leadership, said: "I think most of us learned some time ago, if you don't like the president's position on a particular issue, you simply need to wait a few weeks. If you can follow this White House on the budget, you are a whole lot smarter than I am."