EDITORIAL : CLINTON FIGHTS FOR FAIRNESS; PRESIDENT'S PROPOSED TAX PLAN OFFERS MORE RELIEF FOR MIDDLE- AND LOWER-INCOME AMERICANS.

PRESIDENT Clinton's new and improved version of his tax-cut plan is welcome news for the majority of Americans who give their all for this country - the middle class.

By offering deeper tax reductions to middle-class workers than Republicans, Clinton is thankfully targeting the people who often have been forced to wait in vain for relief when previous tax cuts went through.

Clinton's tax cut is noteworthy for two reasons: It offers more relief for America's middle-income workers; and he introduced his plans by embracing some provisions offered by Republicans.

Now the president and Congress are staring squarely into the eyes of a compromise that is reasonable, attainable and won't shatter the budget.

Clinton's plan offered Monday would limit the $500 child-credit provision contained in the House and Senate bills to families making $75,000 or less. Both the House and Senate bills cut off the deduction at $110,000 in family income.

Clinton said he also would expand the child provision to include more low-income earners who pay no income taxes but pay Social Security, Medicare and unemployment taxes through payroll deductions.

Both the House and Senate bills exclude most working families who pay no income tax. (The House and Senate passed their versions of a tax bill last week as part of the overall agreement with Clinton to balance the federal budget by 2002.)

As we've seen in the past, Clinton is adept at stealing the ball from Republicans and running it into their own end zone. Many of Clinton's proposals resemble provisions already contained in the House and Senate bills with a few changes.

But those changes are dramatic for the vast majority of Americans who deserve not only some relief, but fairness as well. At the moment, the lion's share of tax reductions in the House and Senate versions are scheduled to go to a small sliver of people in the upper brackets.

In fact, critics chastised the president for not blasting Republicans harder for their enrich-the-rich tax-cut plans. The House and Senate bills would direct about 65 percent of their tax cuts to the richest 20 percent of American families. By contrast, a paltry 13 percent of the tax cuts would reach the bottom 60 percent of families.

The Republicans say their plans direct three-fourths of the benefits to families earning less than $75,000. But those numbers come from misleading tables prepared by a highly partisan congressional staff.

When America's wealthiest residents make incomes out of sight of ordinary workers, the additional advantage of a skewed tax cut is even more unfair. The president is correct to defend middle- and low-income Americans from the continuing inequity.