Clinton, Lawmakers Agree on Budget Surplus, Differ on Details

President Clinton and congressional leaders agreed Monday night that the government should safeguard Social Security’s future and provide some form of Medicare prescription drug coverage. But in a White House meeting, they differed on details--and remained especially far apart on the key question of how deeply to cut taxes amid the nation’s booming economy.

As Congress reconvened Monday with tax cuts and spending bills at the top of its agenda, the president invited its top party leaders to talk in broad terms about how to divide up anticipated budget surpluses of as much as $1 trillion outside of Social Security over the next decade.

Although the administration preceded the hour-long meeting with sharp criticisms of GOP proposals for deep tax cuts, both sides emerged fairly upbeat. Republican leaders, in particular, emphasized areas of general agreement, such as using a “lock-box” mechanism to earmark Social Security surpluses to extend the program’s solvency.

“The president is pretty much committed to locking away those Social Security dollars to preserve Social Security and Medicare for the future,” House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said after the meeting. He said lawmakers and the president also tentatively agreed to provide some sort of prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients, although Republicans contend that Clinton’s plan for universal coverage is unnecessary and too costly.

“There’s an opportunity in this Congress that we can do some really big things, some tremendous things,” Hastert said.

The gathering raised the curtain on mid-summer negotiations that will determine the level of tax cuts as well as spending on major programs under circumstances that Congress and the White House haven’t seen in decades: the forecast end of budget deficits and the potential for sizable surpluses.