TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/042489/04248900.047

Text File | 1990-09-18 | 4.8 KB | 87 lines

NATION, Page 19

Wait Till Next Year

Once again, the President and Congress paper over the deficit


    "Rose Garden rubbish."  Up to now that richly evocative phrase
has been used exclusively to describe what political lexicographer
William Safire calls the "supposedly ad-lib remarks made by the
President on minor occasions." But that was before George Bush and
a phalanx of congressional leaders strolled into the Rose Garden
last Friday morning to announce that they had hammered out the 1990
budget concordat. Now, in updated fashion, Rose Garden rubbish can
also be defined as "the unveiling of a cynical, bipartisan
arrangement to avoid difficult decisions on the deficit through the
use of artful arithmetic, Panglossian projections and other
green-eyeshade gimmickry."

    To be fair, there was little of the shamelessly
self-congratulatory rhetoric that normally consecrates such empty
agreements. The President called the budget pact a "first,
manageable step" taken "in a constructive, bipartisan spirit." The
Democrats reflected mild embarrassment over the ease with which
they had capitulated to Bush's no-new-taxes pledge, something close
to the Administration's defense-spending target and budget chief
Richard Darman's strategy of forcing Congress to make the fiscally
necessary but unpopular cuts in domestic programs. "This is not a
heroic agreement," said House Speaker Jim Wright, putting it
mildly. And Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell cautioned, "No
one should be deluded into thinking that this is the end of a
process."

    But is it even a real beginning? In theory, this broad-brush
budget outline would comply with the Gramm-Rudman statutory
requirement by reducing the deficit to $108 billion in 1990. A more
realistic estimate puts the budgetary red ink at close to $130
billion. But numbers cannot convey the political timidity of the
President and Congress in stubbornly holding the line against a tax
hike, protecting most entitlements and refusing to make more than
token trims in domestic and defense outlays. The Rose Garden
agreement, in short, has spawned a Sixteen Tons budget that, to
paraphrase the 1950s Tennessee Ernie Ford hit, will just leave the
Government "another year older and deeper in debt."

    What the budget deal represents is the clearest evidence so far
of the rules of engagement between the new President and the
Democratic Congress. Unlike Ronald Reagan, who blamed Capitol Hill
for everything but the depletion of the ozone layer, Bush by
temperament and political calculation seems determined to avoid
unnecessary and melodramatic showdowns. So far, the President has
behaved like a loyal member of the congressional alumni association
who wants to prove that he is still one of the guys despite his
fancy new digs on Pennsylvania Avenue. Bush intends to block
ambitious Democratic schemes to mandate that business provide such
universal benefits as health insurance, but he is prepared to
negotiate with Congress on consensus issues like the environment.
As Fred McClure, the White House legislative liaison, puts it,
"Assuming we can get them on board, and it goes in the direction
of where we want to go, there's no point in going through a lot of
confrontation."

    With the White House a seemingly permanent Republican bastion,
the posture of congressional Democrats has become a defensive
crouch. The ethical problems of House Speaker Wright further erode
Democratic self-confidence. Small wonder a widespread reaction to
the budget pact was relief. "What did we gain?" asked a well-placed
Democratic congressional aide. "We protected our programs." Where
once Democrats bristled with liberal certainty, austerity has
reduced their budgetary agenda to preserving the remnants of the
welfare state.

    Most of the likely conflict between Bush and Congress stems
from both sides' periodically needing to prove their mettle to
constituency groups. A prime illustration is Bush's all-but-certain
veto this week of congressional legislation raising the minimum
wage to $4.55 an hour over three years. There is no issue of high
principle here, since the President supports lifting the minimum
wage from the current $3.35 to $4.25 and congressional Democrats
grudgingly accepted a subminimum training wage for new workers.
Rather, Bush is trying to win points from the business community
with his hard-line stance, while the Democrats lack the votes to
override a veto.

    It is tempting to stick the label of coalition government on
this inchoate working arrangement between the President and
Congress. But such a moniker exaggerates the willingness of either
side to make the hard choices needed to actually govern. Last
week's timorous budget pact suggests that America is being ruled
by a caretaker regime, with few signs that the nation can long
afford such a passive form of government.