All Aboard the Budget Boat
REES, MATTHEW
All Aboard the Budget Boat by Matthew Rees For a budget deal that's far from perfect, the one announced on May 2 has shown remarkable power to unite Senate Republicans—all but Phil Gramm of Texas....
...They got together and claimed it, but they didn't do anything...
...The one sure thing is that the balanced-budget package benefits incumbents...
...The GOP assumption was that the more fights there were over the budget, and the longer negotiations dragged on, the worse the deal would be...
...He claims the spending cuts aren't real and the entitlement reform is bound to fail...
...Most House Republicans are preparing reluctantly to support an accord they think cuts spending too little...
...Good feeling prevails for now, but there's no guarantee the process will go smoothly: The May 2 agreement—a mere nonbinding understanding between Congress and the administration—could still unravel...
...Both parties wanted to claim a balanced budget...
...But with Democrats signed on to a balanced budget, Republicans lose a potent campaign issue...
...During the 1995 budget negotiations, he held out when most Republicans blinked...
...Because, says Gramm, "it is near perfection in terms of a political document...
...House speaker Newt Gingrich said Gramm is "just factually not accurate" in claiming there's insufficient money to pay for the tax cuts...
...To understand the GOP's queasiness, consider the case of Rep...
...So why the lack of opposition to an agreement no one loves...
...Matthew Rees is a staff writer for The Weekly Standard...
...Indeed, there's just enough in the proposed budget to mollify all sides...
...Late last week conservative Republican Joe Scarborough of Florida complained about the pressure members were under to support the package, with so many elements of it still up in the air: "Silly us, we still want to see the details...
...In the near term, that helps Republicans more than Democrats...
...Todd Tiahrt of Kansas...
...I don't ever recall a budget agreement that is more built on simply assuming the problem away," he says...
...House majority leader Dick Armey said if Gramm had been around for the Creation, God wouldn't have been able to rest from His work on the seventh day: He would have had to "spend the whole day explaining it and justifying it to Sen...
...Back then, Republican proponents of a shutdown came across as "stark raving lunatics," in the words of a top House GOP aide...
...Slade Gorton, an ally of Senate Republican leader Trent Lott...
...Burned before, many in the GOP still worry the administration will play fast and loose...
...Republicans profess not to be worried...
...So few members have emerged as opponents that political talk shows have had to recruit outside activists like Jim Miller, the Reagan-administration budget director, to trash the accord...
...Practically since Election Day, the GOP's budget objective has been to avoid a repeat of 1995, when high-stakes brinkmanship produced two government shutdowns and Republican retreat...
...He says, "Friday, May 2 [the day the budget accord was announced] is the date you can mark as the end of the campaign for Congress...
...Says Gorton, "We don't want to permit the president to have the kind of government-closedown leverage he used against us two years ago...
...But the immediate concern is completing the next steps in the budget process: passing a budget resolution, which sets spending caps for the 13 Appropriations subcommittees, then determining in those subcommittees how the money will be spent...
...We can truly claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility," says Daschle...
...That's certainly true of congressional Republicans, who have introduced a measure to guarantee the government won't close even if the budget process isn't completed by the October 1 deadline...
...This year, Lott in particular sought an early deal with the administration...
...The remaining question is which party benefits if harmony continues and the president signs a balanced budget into law...
...And it's not only Republicans who are on board: At least for the moment, the budget deal has the support of most members of Congress...
...But the administration and congressional Democrats oppose the measure, indicating they may still have some tricks to play...
...Galen concedes that when challenging Democrats, GOP candidates "will have to find something to run against" besides the tax-and-spend label...
...If the past is any guide, they should be...
...They will find it useful to have Shuster screaming alongside Democratic liberals like Paul Wellstone and Ted Kennedy about the need to loosen the purse strings...
...In light of that, even the flawed outcome can be counted a success...
...Ultimately this could hurt Republicans: At a time when foreign policy ranks low among voters' concerns and Democratic spending doesn't threaten to spiral out of control, the GOP could find itself on the domestic-policy defensive...
...Democrats too seem to think that a balanced budget will yield them political dividends...
...Minority leader Tom Daschle predicts that "well over three-fourths" of the Democratic caucus will support the agreement...
...He's probably right...
...Republicans get tax cuts and entitlement savings, while Democrats get funding for uninsured children and the biggest increase in education spending since the Johnson administration...
...Gramm's dissent has irritated colleagues...
...In short, the Republicans were negotiating from a position of weakness...
...Thus Gingrich claims the agreement is "the completion of the Contract With America," while John Hilley, White House liaison to Capitol Hill, calls it "a repudiation of the Contract...
...Asked whether he would have supported this budget outline two years ago, he answers, "No," but says this is the best Republicans could get with Bill Clinton in the White House...
...Even Gramm concedes, "I don't believe anything I say or do will beat this political deal...
...A few House members, like Republican Jim Nussle and Democrat Barney Frank, criticize it privately, but amazingly few are publicly against it...
...Rich Galen of the House Republican campaign committee thinks the GOP will gain...
...All things considered, the deal offers Republicans more than Democrats, but there's a deeper reason why Republicans have signed on...
...Gramm says the experience "traumatized" them...
...In the last session of Congress, he was a diehard Republican freshman...
...There is genuine enthusiasm over the fact that there is a settlement," says Sen...
...Republicans will keep their majority and grow it...
...He now says of the budget deal, "I don't think it's a touchdown, but it is a first down," adding, "We've had too many of our touchdown passes intercepted...
...Among House Republicans, only one opponent of the budget deal has emerged: Bud Shus-ter, the pork-barreling chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who is furious over cuts in transportation funding...
...White House representative Hilley assured reporters last week that "nobody wants to shut the government down...
Vol. 2 • May 1997 • No. 35
