2 Democrats May Defect on Economic Plan

President Clinton’s economic plan ran into trouble in the Senate Wednesday as two more Democratic lawmakers who voted for an earlier version of the budget bill indicated that they may vote against the final product being crafted by Senate-House negotiators.

Sens. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin expressed deep reservations about the package. Their comments came one day after Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.), who also voted for the original version, voiced strong opposition.

The three potential defections leave Clinton’s $500 billion deficit-reduction plan three votes short of the number needed for approval. The Senate passed its version of the package last month by the narrowest of margins, 50 to 49, with Vice President Al Gore casting a tie-breaking vote to send the bill to conference with the House.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and floor general of the measure in the Senate, underscored the tenuous status of the package, telling the New York Times that he does not have the votes in hand to win approval.

Although the potential defections this late in the negotiations pose a serious problem for Democratic leaders, the real extent of the threat is unknown. High-stakes budget battles in Congress are always filled with posturing and bluffing by lawmakers intent on securing last-minute concessions or eager to impress constituents back home.

Indeed, Democratic senators and House members who have declared their reservations about the package have been courted by the leadership and an array of senior Administration officials, including the President. Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) described those equivocators Wednesday as “shakies,” and said that there are a lot of them and that the “shakies rule the day.”

That process now appears to be moving into its final stages--key members of Congress and White House officials said that a final agreement between House and Senate negotiators could be reached as early as today, although none would be surprised to see talks on the final details stretch through the weekend.

Despite its difficulties in the Senate, the President’s plan appeared to be in better shape in the House, where it passed by a skimpy six-vote margin last May.

“The votes are here (in the House) for the President,” said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) after meeting with Clinton. “The message should be clear to the senators.”

On the Senate side, Kerrey said he doubts that a bill he could support would emerge from a Senate-House conference because it would tend to split the difference between the House and Senate versions. Kerrey said that he prefers a major overhaul of government finances instead.

In an impromptu meeting with reporters, he indicated that he might vote against any compromise. Kohl said that he opposes any increase in the gasoline tax, which he said would have an unfair impact on middle-income and low-income motorists.

While Senate-House negotiators neared agreement on almost all issues in contention, they remained divided on the amount of gasoline tax increase to recommend in the compromise bill.

The Senate originally approved a 4.3-cent-a-gallon increase in the gasoline tax, now set at 14.1 cents a gallon. While House negotiators proposed a nine-cent increase, Senate negotiators spurned that offer, along with a follow-up eight-cent suggestion and the issue was stalemated.

“It looks like the gas tax isn’t going to fly,” said one veteran House Democrat, taking a pessimistic view of prospects for Clinton’s program.

For his part, Clinton urged support for his plan, arguing that it “does far more good than harm.”

The somewhat faint praise reflected, perhaps more than Clinton intended, a process that over the course of several months has ground down both the substance of the package and most of the key officials working on it.

As the legislative process has gone forward, the Administration’s once-shiny hopes of producing a budget that would stand as a monument to “change” have faded, and the President and his aides more and more have reconciled themselves to the bittersweet feeling of having gained half a loaf.

Clinton did little to hide those mixed feelings as he spoke with reporters after a luncheon with 60 corporate executives who endorsed his plan.

On the one hand, he posed the choice now before Congress in stark terms, saying that he and his supporters are committed to “the health of the American economy over continued political rhetoric, to productivity over politics, to action over gridlock.”

Members of Congress--like the public at large--may not be thrilled by the plan, he conceded, but they are “going to have to make up their minds whether the consequences of voting no for the country are graver than the consequences of voting yes. If that’s the question, they’ll all vote yes.”

While Clinton and Democrats in Congress worked for a compromise on the budget, Republicans, who called a press conference to denounce the bill, seemed to take joy in their freedom to attack it.

Clinton’s endless efforts to sell his plan resembled the acts of a high school “nerd trying to get a prom date with the homecoming queen,” jibed Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio).

“This Administration is the ‘Coneheads’ of the ‘90’s, eating large amounts of America’s standard of living,” quipped Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

Clinton has not yet reached the level of denial experienced by then-President George Bush when he proposed a budget package in the fall of 1990 and disavowed it almost simultaneously with the unveiling.

But the tepid nature of Clinton’s public comments reflect a basic reality that Bush faced as well: the steps needed to curb the deficit offer a politician large amounts of pain and little prospect of immediate gain. And even the pain comes only after excruciatingly drawn out--and often seemingly meaningless--negotiations.