House Gridlock: Deal Fast or Face Defeat

President Clinton’s economic plan faces a crucial test of viability on Thursday, when the House is scheduled to vote on his $340-billion deficit reduction measure.

Clinton’s original proposal clearly does not pass muster with his own party. All the Republicans in the House oppose the bill. A defeat would signal an utter lack of confidence in the new President.

Clinton, ever the facile politician and pragmatist, is working out some fast compromises to salvage credibility in his attempt to bring down the deficit. He has already suffered considerable embarrassment and decline in popularity as Democrats in both houses have retreated from their early support of his plan. But congressional leaders still back his basic approach, which includes tax increases.

Perhaps the Administration’s early success in selling the economic plan lulled it into the mistaken notion that with Democrats tipping the scale in both the Senate and House, Clinton’s proposal was a done deal. That was before the honeymoon--one of the shortest in political matrimonial history--ended.

The tax-and-spend specter haunts congressional Democrats. First, Senate Republicans brandish the theme as they sank Clinton’s separate $16.3-billion stimulus package. Then there’s populist Ross Perot browbeating the President and other Democrats for what he describes as inadequate spending cuts. Consumer confidence, meanwhile, is at its lowest level since last October. Clinton’s approval ratings have gone south, too.

The President said Tuesday he will accept some limits on growth of Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, a concession to offset a big challenge from Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.), author of a competing economic proposal to replace Clinton’s proposed broad-based energy tax. Boren, from an oil state, has publicly threatened to use his critical vote on the Senate Finance Committee to kill Clinton’s energy tax, which is based on BTU measurements of various forms of energy. His defiant attitude has had a ripple effect on skittish House Democrats.

Why would House Democrats, who face election next year, vote for the Clinton plan if they fear the President later will cut deals with the Senate to placate Democrats like Boren? House Democrats will not entertain such a political risk unless Clinton assures them that he is not going to hang them out to dry.

Ongoing eleventh-hour talks are aimed at gaining the votes needed to secure the 218 required for certain House passage. A bill must clear the House, otherwise Washington will be in gridlock again. But this time it won’t be because of bipartisan bickering. The Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves.