The Worry of a Weak Presidency : Budget circus raises questions at bad time

Some government.

As the nation enters Day 12 of the new federal fiscal year without a budget, the American people might be forgiven for wondering about the competence of their elected, salaried representatives.

BIPARTISANSHIP: President Bush was the latest to stumble publicly--sending Congress conflicting signals over capital gains that confused even his allies on the Hill. But the bungling is manifestly bipartisan. C-Span junkies over the weekend could lap up the ineptitude as a Democratic Congress orated itself into near-hoarse exhaustion over the mousy temporary budget resolution.

The American people might also be forgiven for wondering what signals a watching world might be picking up. Ordinarily a U.S. budget debate might not attract a great deal of attention beyond the usual snoopy international financial markets. But with the United States now in the Persian Gulf to deter Iraq, the image of an unsteady presidency and a careening Congress may strike those unschooled in America’s colorful political ways as suggestive of a government without its act together or its head on straight. These are not great signals to be sending abroad when some 200,000 Americans are facing Iraqi armies.

The President’s back-and-forth on capital gains is particularly worrisome, and not only because he is the commander in chief whose steady hand--symbolic or otherwise--is required on all levers of power. The nation genuinely needs a serious budget--one that cuts the deficit--and it needs to demonstrate that the national political process is working. The budget summit failed to produce a compromise that included either higher tax rates or lower capital-gains taxes; it was practically dead on arrival.

So when the President indicated this week some interest in reverting to that formula--the kind of hard-core Democratic-Republican horse-trading deal (which The Times endorsed in July) that helps grease over precisely the kind of political impasse we are now in--some in Congress got very interested. Then he changed his mind. Thursday he raised that prospect again. Confusion.

SCAPEGOATS: The President cannot be blamed for Congress’ ineptitude, but he must be held accountable for the disarray in his own house. Under such circumstances can the search for scapegoats to take the rap be far behind? Within walking distance of the scaffold are White House Chief of Staff John Sununu and Budget Director Richard Darman. They are accused of bungling the budget summit that produced a plausible but politically unappealing budget, for treating Congress like dirt and for failing to brief the President adequately on how things were going--or not going. No doubt sacking two White House aides for the sins of an entire government would be unfair in the extreme. But would that move help insulate the President from blame? A weakened President would be a strategic liability as the U.S. seeks to fend off Iraq and hold together the anti-Saddam international consensus. One way or the other the White House must get its act together.