Clinton Still Determined to Pursue Policy Goals

As he prepares for his last State of the Union speech, President Clinton is generating policy proposals as if he had years--not just until next January--to work out complex legislative deals with his political enemies in Congress.

In the end, Congress may give Clinton little more than the gridlock that stymied his proposals last year. Republicans have their own policy ideas, and their mistrust and hatred of Clinton are legendary.

Yet it is too soon to write the year off. Nervous about being tagged as do-nothings in the looming election campaign, some Republicans will press for deals. A Medicare prescription drug benefit, tax cuts for two-earner couples and college students, rights for HMO patients and more spending for schools and law enforcement--all this and more could become law this year.

In fact, Clinton may need to keep a nervous eye on his fellow Democrats, who may themselves try to foil Clinton’s dreams of polishing his legacy in their zeal to recapture the House by branding the Republicans as recalcitrants.

For his part, Clinton refuses to buy the notion that he is a lame duck. He has gotten his way before when the odds were against him. Even if Congress ignores his legislative proposals, White House aides said that the president will advance his agenda through executive orders. The recent designation of three new national monuments in Arizona and California--lauded by environmentalists but criticized by some GOP lawmakers--is one example of what he might do.

“He’s not going to go to his new home in New York to unpack boxes,” said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart.

In settings ranging from intimate fund-raisers to staged media events, Clinton has been testing the themes he will sound in his eighth State of the Union message Thursday.

He promises an “aggressive” agenda, an effort to “ratify” his style of activist government. “We have an unparalleled opportunity to do the things we want to do. . . . It’s about defining them, finding them and dreaming them,” he told a small group of wealthy Democratic contributors in a Boston suburb. “The thing that I am seized with in this final year of my presidency is keeping the attention of the American people on the future.”

At a $25,000-per-couple fund-raiser recently, a teen choir serenaded Clinton with the Jim Croce ballad, “Time in a Bottle.” The refrain: “There never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them.”

A few days earlier, speaking to small-business owners in a Brooklyn neighborhood where unemployment remains double the national rate, Clinton said that good times and a federal budget surplus are an incentive to do more, not an excuse to sit back.

“We have, for the first time in my lifetime, a strong economy, an improving social fabric and the absence of severe domestic crises or foreign crises,” he said. “If we cannot fulfill our responsibility now to give every American a chance to live up to his or her God-given potential, when in the wide world will we ever get around to it?”

Political observers are intrigued by Clinton’s flurry of proposals and his flights of rhetoric.

“While Clinton doesn’t have much moral credibility, he still has a lot of credibility in terms of political vision and the things he wants to do as far as policy,” said Carol Nackenoff, a political scientist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. “He may be forced into the role of a supporting actor--but he can still be an important supporting actor.”

So Clinton isn’t walking like a lame duck. He’s not talking like a lame duck. But whether history records that he beat expectations in his last year as president is not in his hands alone. And he will not find much sympathy on Capitol Hill.

“I see this president as being basically irrelevant,” said Rep. John Edward Porter (R-Ill.), a veteran GOP moderate. “He makes great speeches, but his ability to get things done in Congress is basically zero.”

“He doesn’t have many friends in Congress,” said James Thurber, a professor of government at American University in Washington. “Even the ranking Democratic leaders are not close to him. Those personal relationships make a difference in this kind of a year. He’s a lame duck with a divided government, and he has no close friends among Democrats or Republicans.”

Republicans are not the only potential agents of congressional inaction. Some Democrats believe that their interest in recapturing the House--as well as winning the presidency--is better served by offering voters the spectacle of a do-nothing Republican Congress and an agenda of things that would be done if Democrats were in charge.

Last year, Clinton faced heavy pressure from Democrats against making the kind of compromises needed to make headway on Social Security and Medicare reform.

“I haven’t seen anything over the last few weeks that would indicate to me that the Democrat leadership is interested in working with anyone,” Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, the third-ranking Republican in the House, said last week. He predicted more legislative gridlock.

Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), a moderate who often finds himself in the thick of debates over health care and taxes, said that assessment is overwrought.

“Sure, there are some Democratic members who say we shouldn’t do anything to avoid giving Republicans credit, but the overwhelming majority doesn’t want to waste a year,” Cardin said. “If things get done, voters will understand it was the Democrats.”

Cardin said that he expects two “waves” of activity on policy issues this year: an initial winnowing of proposals now and into the spring, and concentration on what seems doable in late summer.

Most of what Congress does is determined by the availability of money, and the Congressional Budget Office is expected to announce shortly that the federal surplus will be $30 billion to $50 billion greater than previously projected. That alone should increase pressure for action on Capitol Hill this year. “We’ve never had this type of chemistry,” said Cardin.

An issue that seems to be headed toward a compromise is a new Medicare benefit for prescription drugs. At least one-third of Medicare enrollees have no privately purchased prescription coverage, and many of those who do can afford only limited plans. As they did last year, Republicans are still arguing that the benefit should be more narrowly targeted than Clinton has proposed. But they seem much more eager to reach a deal, and proponents are encouraged by the new willingness of the drug industry to support the benefit.

“There is an unabashed commitment to dealing with this,” said Trent Duffy, a spokesman for Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee. “But our leaders may not agree with the president that every senior should get taxpayer-funded free drugs.”

Republicans have also shifted strategy on tax cuts, from offering one big fat bill to a series of smaller measures, making it more likely a real tax cut will pass. There are a few areas of potential compromise: Republicans want to reduce the “marriage penalty,” Clinton wants to expand a tax benefit for low-income working parents. And both sides want to provide more tax write-offs for college costs.

But one of the first acts of Congress may be to fling Clinton a challenge. Leading Republicans are advocating legislation to grant citizenship to Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban refugee who has become the subject of an international custody battle since his rescue off the Florida coast.

The Clinton administration says Elian should be returned to his father in Cuba. If a citizenship bill comes to the floor, Democrats will be “all over the map,” a Democratic leadership aide said.