COLUMN ONE : What the Fuss Will Be About : You’ll hear less about free trade, more about managed trade. School vouchers are out, charter schools are in. A new President will bring new buzzwords and a new agenda. Here’s a guide.

File away everything you’ve been learning about federal vouchers for private education.

Bone up on charter schools.

Stop worrying about the pros and cons of environmental deregulation.

Get ready for green taxes.

With Democrats moving into the White House for the first time in 12 years, the policy debate in Washington is about to be realigned. When Bill Clinton takes the oath of office as President this month, he will bring with him a briefcase full of ideas that could shape the political arguments of the 1990s as thoroughly as Ronald Reagan’s anti-government, anti-tax philosophy colored the last decade.

“Just as Reagan defined the 1980s, Clinton is going to define the 1990s in many fundamental ways,” said Mark Steitz, research director of the Democratic National Committee.

Clinton’s ascension could close the book on many of Washington’s longest-running policy disputes--and open a broad array of new disagreements.

This intellectual changing of the guard involves more than a new glossary of buzzwords. It promises a shift in the center of the debate. With Democrats now controlling all the levers of government, divisions between the parties may become less important than fissures within the Democratic Party itself.

“Clinton talked about new policies, and now we’ll find out whether the party is of one mind or several minds,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank with close ties to Clinton. “This is a moment of truth for the Democrats.”

Here is a look at some of the debates ahead:

School Vouchers vs. Charter Schools: No idea may fall from grace in Washington faster than private-school choice. For several years, Republicans have been arguing that the best way to improve public schools is to expose them to more competition by providing parents with federal vouchers to send their children to private schools.

Clinton may have handed the GOP an argument by deciding to send his daughter, Chelsea, to private school. But with the teachers’ unions and most Democrats--including Clinton--vehemently opposing vouchers as a threat to universal public education, the idea still faces eclipse.

Increasingly, moderate Democrats are latching onto an alternative idea that attempts to increase competitive pressure on the schools--but within the public education system. The idea, called charter schools, would allow parents, teachers or community organizations to effectively secede from their school systems and receive state charters to set up alternative schools. State funding would follow the students attending the new schools.

Only California and Minnesota have passed laws for charter schools so far, but Clinton embraced the idea late in the campaign, and supporters believe he could boost the concept just as President Bush did with school choice. “It is going to be big national news soon,” Marshall said. Yet the issue could put Clinton in conflict with his supporters in the teachers’ unions; though private school vouchers concern the unions more, they are also skeptical of charter schools.

Trickle-Down versus Investment: In Clinton’s Washington, “investment” has already emerged as the buzzword of choice. His economic strategy--though constrained by the deficit--is built on the belief that the key to long-term economic health is providing incentives for greater private investment, and increasing public “investment” in education, training, research and infrastructure.

Forests are likely to fall as the experts churn out thick studies on whether the investment philosophy has any more validity than the claims made by supply-side economists 12 years ago. The supply-siders said the key to reviving the economy was reducing marginal tax rates, an idea derided by Democrats as “trickle-down economics.” In a direct reversal of the Reagan-Bush course, Clinton is committed to raising the top tax rate on the affluent.

Deregulation versus Green Taxes: For the past 12 years, the efforts of the Bush and Reagan administrations to constrain or roll back existing environmental regulations have provoked bitter policy fights. With environmentalists now operating under the protective wing of Vice President Al Gore, not even the most optimistic chemical industry lobbyist is expecting more environmental deregulation.

But Clinton has also indicated that he is eager to find alternatives to the massive regulatory battles with business that at times threatened to paralyze the Jimmy Carter Administration. The likely alternative: an increasing emphasis on “green taxes” and other measures that attempt to use “market incentives” rather than regulation to encourage environmentally correct behavior. Examples include gasoline and other energy taxes designed to encourage conservation, and taxes on the use of virgin materials aimed at promoting recycling.

Abortion and Gay Rights: Disputes over abortion could still set off sparks in 1993 if congressional Democrats decide to seriously pursue legislation codifying the legal right to abortion. But many in both parties expect the defining cultural issue of the 1980s to steadily lose its lacerating edge because the challenge to legalized abortion that began with Reagan’s victory has been blunted: Five Supreme Court justices now support the right to abortion, and Clinton is committed to appointing more justices who support abortion rights.

Other issues will rise in abortion’s place as the new proxies in the cultural war between Democrats and Republicans. Gay rights is bound to be one. Conservative activists are already focusing on Clinton’s plan to eliminate the ban on homosexuals in the military; many say they will watch closely the Clinton Administration’s posture toward educational reforms, such as New York City’s new multicultural curriculum, aimed at promoting tolerance toward gays.

Civil rights issues could also sharpen. Republican criticism of affirmative action as “reverse discrimination” was neutered after Bush signed the Civil Rights Act in 1991. But if Clinton’s search for “diversity” takes on the appearance of quotas--or his civil rights appointees intensify demands for private-sector affirmative action programs--the issue could flare again, observers in both parties say.

On issues like these, Clinton’s biggest challenge may be moderating the activists in his own party. “Either he will be forced to the cultural left--in which case it will become a big issue dividing Clinton from Republicans--or he will try to stick to the cultural center--in which case there will be intra-party Democratic fights,” said Bill Kristol, chief of staff for Vice President Dan Quayle.

How to Help the Cities: Ironically, Clinton may be positioned to achieve what Reagan and Bush long sought: congressional approval of enterprise zones that offer tax breaks to attract outside investors into depressed inner-city neighborhoods. Congress actually approved legislation creating such zones last year, but Bush vetoed it because the measure also raised taxes on the rich. Clinton supports enterprise zones, and many observers believe that he can quickly secure at least a pilot program--if the budget permits.

While enterprise zones focus on luring outside capital into inner cities, Clinton is more interested in building institutions to help nurture indigenous entrepreneurs. His agenda will raise the profile of ideas such as community development banks, which make loans to small inner-city enterprises; individual development accounts, which would provide matching government funds for poor people saving to start a business or attend college; and reforms in the Community Reinvestment Act aimed at compelling banks to make more loans in the inner city.

Toughening the CRA is likely to prove the new stumbling block, especially at a time when bankers are telling Clinton that bank deregulation could give the economy a shot of adrenaline.

Police and Court Reform: Both Bush and Reagan put great emphasis on reforming the federal criminal code to increase the applicability of the federal death penalty, limit death-row appeals and make it easier for police to introduce disputed evidence into court. Democrats, in turn, resisted those initiatives and pushed for tighter gun controls.

Debate on these matters deadlocked throughout the Bush presidency. Now, congressional Democrats believe Clinton could consummate a compromise that Bush spurned: criminal code reform in return for tighter gun control. (One complicating factor could be congressional liberals backing away from death penalty reforms they accepted under pressure from Bush.)

By resolving these issues, Clinton would be able to move onto his own agenda, which focuses less on legal reforms than on efforts to increase the number of police. Two ideas will now move to the forefront. One is a “police corps” that would steer young people into local police departments as part of Clinton’s overall national service plan, which would allow students to pay back federal college loans by providing two years of public service. The second is legislation that would allow military personnel to accumulate time toward their pensions by serving as police officers.

Trade: On trade policy, the center of gravity may shift as much as on any issue in Washington. During the campaign, Clinton generally identified with free trade and conditionally supported the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiated by the Bush Administration. But Clinton’s coalition contains powerful forces that may force him to promote ideas resisted by the GOP as sins against free trade.

One is “managed trade.” Under that concept, the United States would downplay negotiations aimed at changing allegedly unfair practices by Japan or other competitors and instead simply set numerical targets for market share for U.S. products.

The other new thrust in trade policy could be “green trade”--efforts to harmonize international environmental standards through trade negotiations.

“The question will be: Are we going to create environmental standards that, if not met, will disqualify products from other countries?” said Jeffrey E. Garten, an author and investment banker.

Family Values: Both Reagan and Bush defined the problems facing American families primarily in cultural terms. They criticized Hollywood producers who failed to respect “family values,” tried to limit federal funding for “indecent art” and, though only desultorily, pushed to reinstate prayer in public schools. Those ideas all will receive a cold shoulder in the new Administration.

Clinton will likely try to shift the debate away from family values to material steps the government can take to support families. While Murphy Brown gets on with her (fictional) life, the arguments in Washington will move toward collecting child support from “deadbeat dads,” bolstering working-poor families by increasing the minimum wage and boosting the earned income tax credit and guaranteeing all families access to health care.

The politics of welfare reform may also be dramatically scrambled. During the campaign, Clinton proposed a blend of traditional Republican and Democratic positions: increasing federal spending on training and education but then requiring all welfare recipients to work after two years, with guaranteed public jobs if none are available in the private sector.

For Clinton, the stiffest test may be getting the program through his own government: Designated Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, who comes from the party’s liberal wing, didn’t list welfare reform as one of her priorities when Clinton announced her appointment last month.

Business and Labor: During the Reagan and Bush Administrations, business typically maintained a united front--usually in concert with the White House--against organized labor.

Business-labor fights are still looming, particularly over proposals to hike the minimum wage and prevent companies from hiring permanent replacement workers during strikes. But under Clinton, such divisions may be increasingly overshadowed by splits between big business and small business.

Big business likes many aspects of Clinton’s economic agenda, particularly his promise of new tax incentives for investment and research, and his plans to increase government spending on “strategic technologies.”

But many small business leaders oppose his proposals that would require all employers to provide health insurance and parental leave. They also dislike his proposal to require employers to devote 1.5% of their payroll to training, though Labor Secretary-designate Robert B. Reich has indicated the Administration may back away from that idea.

The Deficit: Some things never change. The federal budget deficit loomed over all other issues in Washington during the Reagan and Bush years; it promises to do the same for Clinton’s first term. For most of the past 12 years, the deficit debate has pitted Republicans urging reductions in domestic programs and entitlements against Democrats calling for higher taxes on the rich and greater defense cuts.

The choices won’t be different this year; but the debate will change because Clinton, unlike Bush and Reagan, won’t be able to blame partisan gridlock for inaction.

Nothing will expose the divisions in the Democratic Party as ruthlessly as the deficit debate, many observers believe.

“The major battle will be over what’s a legitimate goal for deficit reduction and how much public investment can we afford within that,” said Roger Hickey of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.