Clinton Hopes the Zeal for Spending Cuts Won’t Go Too Far : Congress: Even champions of social programs are vying with conservatives to press for deficit reduction.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) described it as “a strange sense of a kind of deja vu , with a difference”--the recognition that Congress is undergoing a conversion as dramatic as the one that ushered in a new economic era 12 years ago.

“In 1981, there got to be a contest about who could cut taxes faster and more energetically,” Foley said. “In 1993, it seems to be who can cut spending.”

But there is a large difference between the politics of cutting taxes and cutting spending. Tax reductions sell with taxpayers in any political season. Spending cuts inevitably mean pain for many constituents and yet, remarkably, even lawmakers who champion social programs are clamoring for reductions.

Indeed, this week’s endorsement of President Clinton’s economic agenda in the House and this week’s all-but-certain Senate approval are part of a shift in Washington politics that has turned conventional wisdom on its head.

When Clinton was elected, many in Washington predicted that his biggest challenge would be restraining liberal Democrats from rushing to spend more on social programs that languished during the 12 years Republicans controlled the White House.

Instead, quite the opposite has happened and Clinton now finds himself trying to keep Congress from going too far with spending cuts. Administration officials are cautioning congressional Democrats not to get carried away with deficit reduction, lest sharp spending cuts stifle the recovery.

Even liberal Democrats, who could be counted on in years past to remain resolute in support of expanded federal spending, are rushing to join their moderate and conservative colleagues in embracing deficit reduction.

In addition, there is strong sentiment on Capitol Hill to scale back or even abandon Clinton’s $30-billion package of short-term spending and tax breaks designed to stimulate the economy. Initially, the White House had assumed that the stimulus package would be the most popular element of its overall economic plan. But some are now saying the package will pass only if accompanied by more reductions.

In the House, where the rules give the leadership firm control over members, top Democrats were able to beat back an effort to pare the stimulus program. However, in the Senate, the fate of the package is still uncertain.

Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) has proposed delaying about half the package until Congress enacts detailed spending cuts later this year. “I have a real concern that it won’t pass unless some adjustments are made,” he said.

As the Senate debated the budget resolution Friday, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) proposed a freeze on domestic spending programs that he said would save an additional $100 billion. His amendment was tabled on a 54-42 vote, but five Democrats broke party ranks to support Grassley.

In a sense, the budget resolutions are the easy part--they set limits but do not include the detailed work of determining which programs in which congressional districts will be curtailed.

The House budget resolution would impose $62.5 billion in spending cuts beyond those proposed by Clinton over the next five years. The Senate version would trim $41 billion more than the Clinton plan.

The two budget resolutions are not detailed inventories of prospective cuts. Instead, they are broad outlines, setting overall targets that other committees must reach as they draft authorization and appropriation bills. Once the resolutions are approved by their respective houses, congressional leaders hope to combine them into one compromise measure before Congress adjourns for its Easter recess early next month.

In large part, the demand for spending cuts appears to reflect a significant shift in the public mood. The change was evident last year in the popularity of Ross Perot’s unconventional presidential campaign, which tapped into the nation’s underlying anxieties over the ballooning budget deficit.

The election also changed the political calculation for many Democrats. “We Democrats are now in control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.), who has led the charge for additional spending cuts in the House. “We’re going to get the credit or the blame for whatever happens over the next two or four years.”

Congressional Democrats insist that Clinton also deserves much of the credit. Because the new President has put his own popularity on the line by proposing tax increases to reduce the deficit, they say that they are emboldened to do the same.

But lawmakers said that they also have begun to understand how damaging the deficit has become, not only to the nation’s future prosperity but also to their own ability to get anything accomplished. This year, for example, the $200 billion the government will pay in interest on the national debt will dwarf every discretionary spending program except defense.

Among those with a new awareness is Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who waged a losing battle through the 1980s for such causes as funding for public housing, community development block grants and mass transit subsidies.

But these days, Schumer and Rep. Bill K. Brewster (D-Okla.) are pushing a tough proposal that would restrain spending far more than the White House wants and require that savings be used to reduce the deficit rather than to finance new initiatives.

“It was a dawning realization,” Schumer said. “Until we get a handle on the deficit, those of us who believe in government and what it can do aren’t ever going to be able to do anything. I’m tired of just complaining (about the lack of) money for the programs that I believe in and not being able to deliver.”

Schumer and Brewster have proposed setting up a special Deficit Reduction Guaranty Trust Fund. If enacted, it would assure that money from tax increases, Social Security savings, entitlement cuts and lower interest payments go toward reducing the deficit instead of financing new domestic spending.

At the same time, the proposal would require that any increases in discretionary spending be offset by the same dollar amount in cuts from other discretionary programs.

At least three times in six years, Congress and the President have produced deficit-reduction schemes that were touted as the solution to the fiscal crisis. Instead, the deficit has continued to grow.

“I have been through a whole series of these exercises in futility. I didn’t vote for any of them,” said Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.), one of the Democrats’ most vocal deficit-reduction advocates. “I don’t think the public can stand another disappointment.”

In past years, House Budget Committee member Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) said, Democrats were leery of efforts to reduce the deficit because they feared that Republicans would use them as an excuse to gut or eliminate programs that conservatives oppose for ideological reasons. Now, however, they are far more comfortable giving some ground on programs that they champion.

So it was, Gordon said, that last week’s House Budget Committee meeting found Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) conceding the need for cuts in housing, Stenholm acceding to reductions in agriculture and Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.) supporting trims in education.

Yet for all the fervor for spending cuts, there are indications of a backlash. The Congressional Black Caucus, for example, has complained that it was shut out when the Democratic leadership negotiated with conservatives to put additional spending reductions in the budget resolution.

“It’s the height of disrespect to forge an agreement with conservatives and then bring it to the (Democratic) caucus as a fait accompli ,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Similarly, three dozen members of the Progressive Caucus wrote Foley complaining: “We are not prepared to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, the children, the elderly and the working people who have already suffered so much during the last 12 years.”