THE DEFICIT : Budget Balancing: Clinton Infuriates Almost Everyone

Here’s a scenario. The President is facing a budget crisis. He abandons his earlier strategy in an effort to reach a compromise with a Congress controlled by the other party. That enrages his supporters, who accuse him of betraying them on an issue of principle.

Sound familiar? That’s because it’s all happened before. Exactly five years ago.

President George Bush, June, 1990. The President defends his decision to renounce his “Read my lips, no new taxes” campaign pledge. Bush warns that the alternative to a budget deal will be “Draconian cuts in defense, student grants and a wide array of other necessary domestic services.” To avoid this, Bush said, “Tough decisions must be made.”

President Bill Clinton, June, 1995. The President defends his decision to offer a balanced-budget proposal that includes cuts in projected spending on Medicare and other social programs. To “those who have suggested it might actually benefit one side or the other politically if we had gridlock and ended this fiscal year without a budget,” Clinton responds: “That would be bad for our country, and we have to do everything we can to avoid it.”

When Bush agreed to a tax hike in 1990, Republicans complained the President was selling them out. Congressional Democrats are saying the same thing now about their President.

Why is Clinton doing this? He’s using the same argument Bush used: The deficit made me do it. If the President waited too long, the GOP budget might make its way through Congress. The President would be faced with what the White House calls a “train wreck” scenario. The President could either sign a bill with devastating budget cuts and irresponsible tax cuts. Or he could veto the bill and shut down the federal government.

The political landscape is littered with the bodies of politicians who tried to sell tough deficit reduction. Bush got his head handed to him in 1992. Walter F. Mondale tried to run on deficit reduction in 1984. Remember this? “President Reagan will raise your taxes. So will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.” Exit Mondale.

The deficit was Paul E. Tsongas’s issue in the 1992 Democratic primaries: “I am not running for Santa Claus.” It was Ross Perot’s issue in the general election. But Santa Claus is a pretty popular guy. Clinton ran against the politics of austerity and whipped Tsongas and Perot.

Then when Clinton took office in 1993, he shifted gears and adopted deficit reduction as his cause. The new President told the country, “We just have to face the fact that to make the changes our country needs, more Americans must contribute today so that all Americans can be better off tomorrow.” A pleasantly surprised Tsongas said, “The person giving that speech is not the same person I campaigned against.”

Last year, Clinton pointed with pride to the fact that, for the first time since Harry S. Truman, the deficit has gone down three years in a row. The voters showed themselves supremely ungrateful for that achievement in the 1994 midterm.

So in February, Clinton said, in effect, “To hell with it.” He sent Congress a budget with no further deficit reduction. His strategy was to let the GOP make the painful cuts. And take the heat.

Then on Tuesday night, in what Democrats are attacking as a failure of nerve, the President shifted gears once again and took up the cause of a balanced budget. Cries of betrayal were heard in the land. A President who has had four different deficit policies in four years does have a certain credibility problem.

So why did Clinton reverse himself?

Evil influences, say many Democrats. Some blame Vice President Al Gore, a centrist who wants to take over the Democratic Party after Clinton and curb the influence of congressional liberals. Most see Dick Morris, an elusive political strategist who has a longstanding relationship with Clinton, as the White House Rasputin. Not only has Morris been advising Clinton, but he’s also--gasp!--a Republican whose clients include Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

The most plausible theory is the simplest. Clinton did it because he wanted to. He’s a policy wonk. He has a solution for every problem. He even has solutions for which there are no known problems. He can’t stand the fact that a major policy debate is going on and he’s not a serious player. Clinton’s earlier budget proposal--proposing no further deficit reduction--was rejected 99-0 by the Senate. How’s that for irrelevance?

But Clinton’s also a shrewd politician. The balanced-budget cause has never paid off politically. Why should it now?

For one thing, Mondale, Bush and Clinton all proposed tax hikes. The issue on the table is spending cuts. And cutting the size of government was the mandate of the 1994 election. A lot of politicians are betting it’s safer now to talk about painful budget cuts than it was a few years ago. Elections, particularly dramatic ones like 1994, make a difference.

It is an article of faith among congressional Democrats that the Republican budget will meet the same fate as health-care reform did last year. Republicans never came up with an alternative health-care proposal. The Administration’s plan simply sank of its own weight.

So far, however, the GOP budget proposals have not produced a political firestorm. That’s got the White House spooked. My God--suppose this thing really does get through Congress and land on the President’s desk? Train wreck!

The President is also making a political calculation. Clinton got 43% of the vote in 1992. Perot got 19%. To get to a majority next year, Clinton doesn’t have to win all the Perot vote. He doesn’t even have to win most of it. Just 40% of the Perot vote will put Clinton over the top.

A White House strategist put it this way: “The core issue the swing voters care about is balancing the budget. Those voters agree with Clinton on many points--that the process should be more gradual, with less pain; that we should reform health care rather than cut medical benefits; that tax cuts should be for the middle class and not just for the rich. But if he does not say, as a prefix, that he is all for getting to a balanced budget, they never hear the suffix.”

Sure enough, Ross Perot said on Thursday, “I am delighted the President has presented a budget plan. The Republicans have a plan, the Democrats have a plan. It’s sorta like alcoholics that have finally decided it’s time to quit drinkin’.”

When asked about the furious response of congressional Democrats to his budget plan, Clinton said he was “sympathetic to the Democratic position.” Excuse me? Isn’t he leader of the Democratic Party?

Actually, no. By offering his own budget plan without consulting Democrats in Congress, Clinton has cut himself off from his party. Deliberately. After all, the Democrats in Congress lost the last election. Clinton doesn’t want to be associated with a party of losers.

The President explained it this way on Wednesday. “The Democratic position is that the Republicans won Congress by just saying ‘no.’ And somehow they got rewarded for that. And therefore we should just say ‘no,’ at least for a much longer time.” Clinton added, “I do not believe that’s the appropriate position for the President.”

Bush paid a price for abandoning his tax pledge in 1990. He faced opposition from conservatives in his own party in the 1992 primaries. Many conservatives voted for Perot in the general election. Bush lost his base in 1992. Clinton has got to be worried about losing his base in 1996.

And not just on the budget. The President didn’t rush to defend affirmative action after the Supreme Court cut it back last week. The Administration decided not to take a position on the appeal of an anti-gay rights law now before the court. Clinton promised Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole that if Congress gives him the line-item veto, he will use it only to cut spending, not to eliminate tax cuts.

When liberals felt betrayed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, they rallied to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in the Democratic primaries. Many voted for independent John Anderson in the general election. Well, Jesse Jackson is threatening to challenge Clinton in 1996. And former Connecticut Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.--whose political profile is much like Anderson’s--may run as an independent.

Clinton’s biggest problem next year may not be attracting Perot’s 19%. It may be holding on to the Democratic base vote of 43% he got last time.