How the Deal Was Done
BARNES, FRED
How the Deal Was Done by Fred Barnes Without Erskine Bowles and John Hilley, there wouldn't have been a budget deal between the White House and congressional Republicans. so says senate majority...
...Phil Gramm, Lott proposed to name six American economists who've won the Nobel prize to a panel that would decide the CPI issue...
...He was smuggled into the White House at 9 a.m...
...and stayed an hour...
...Instead, House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt went to the White House and "slapped them around a little bit" on the CPI, Lott says, and Clinton backed off...
...Meanwhile, Republicans had made deep concessions, seeking $100 billion in net tax cuts instead of the $245 billion they sought in 1995 (they settled for $85 billion...
...He personally has created a comfort zone for Clinton in dealing with Republicans...
...In this environment, Clinton's "investments" would not be approved and new programs he'd earlier initiated would be slashed...
...Lott said he'd kept his word and treated the chemical weapons issue fairly, drawing sharp criticism from conservatives...
...They've proven they're not obstructionists...
...Lott said he would...
...So 10 days later, Lott tried another tack, a private, four-page letter...
...I've been forthcoming and I've kept my word," Lott says...
...Lott chastised Clinton for not pressing his negotiators to reach a budget deal...
...Whether prompted by the letter or not, progress followed...
...The last call, at 3:17 p.m., cinched the deal...
...He wanted assurance the earned-income tax credit wouldn't be trimmed...
...Panetta, Clinton's chief of staff from 1994 to early 1997, relished more government spending, not a balanced budget, according to Lott...
...Do you have the courage to do the same thing," Lott asked the president, knowing "you'll get hammered by your left flank...
...I've shown I could move legislation...
...Without Lott's support, it wouldn't have been ratified...
...I've shown I'll step up and take a tough vote...
...This would make a budget deal easier, and Clinton desperately wanted it...
...He promised Clinton that, absent big problems, his appointments would be confirmed quickly, and they were...
...He also wrote that he and Clinton had "demonstrated our ability to cooperate on a major national security issue," the chemical-weapons treaty...
...Agreement on paring the CPI would be a "confidence-building measure" for Clinton leading to a deal, a senior White House aide said...
...He was told no (The Weekly Standard obtained a copy after the budget deal was struck...
...Later, House speaker Newt Gingrich joined a call to the White House...
...He prodded Clinton, but if no deal were achieved, he wanted "a written record of what I'd done and recommended...
...Lott sought to provide that...
...Seizing an idea proposed by sen...
...Senior Clinton aides weren't told of the one-on-one session...
...Bowles, Lott wrote, had promised "movement from the administration every single day...
...Lott's most strenuous effort came on behalf of shaving a percentage point off the Consumer Price index...
...he asked worriedly...
...Actually, Lott had written that in the letter...
...I hope you agree with me and will do the same...
...so says senate majority leader Trent Lott, who likes both men...
...You said in 1996 that the era of big government was over, and yet your negotiators insist on $5 billion new mandatory spending for school construction grants," Lott wrote...
...President," Lott concluded, "I am trying my hardest to work with you...
...Lott also saw the chemical weapons treaty, in part anyway, as a vehicle for demonstrating bipartisan cooperation...
...What did Lott get out of all this, besides the budget agreement...
...The letter made an impression on Clinton...
...Lott talked to Clinton by phone four times on May 2 to iron out final details...
...Ten minutes later, the president called back...
...But maybe I'm reading too much into it...
...A GOP-only budget would skimp on entitlement cuts...
...Here's what Lott, in a moment of false modesty, doesn't say: Without his own maneuvering, there probably wouldn't have been a budget agreement...
...The president, Lott said, faced an alternative worse than a deal with Republicans...
...And Lott personally ushered her troubled nomination through the senate...
...Lott kept it off his official schedule...
...At the White House, "they have to acknowledge that means something...
...Bowles, the White House chief of staff, and Hilley, the congressional lobbyist, replaced Leon Panetta this year as President Clinton's chief negotiators on the budget...
...Executive editor Fred Barnes appears weekly on Fox on Politics on the Fox News Channel...
...They've shown they're willing to be bipartisan...
...Clinton, never bold and always distrustful of Republicans, needed assurance it was safe to deal with GOP leaders...
...Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, supposedly the most influential figure in Clinton's cabinet, was not helpful either...
...I felt like I was a hostage," says Lott...
...i don't think much of his approach or attitude," says Lott...
...When he announced the budget deal on May 2, he said Lott had told him in a phone call it would be easier to agree while the economy was strong...
...Clinton didn't, and the negotiations went nowhere...
...Lott said fine, since Republicans had no plans to cut it anyway...
...The trustees just told us again that Medicare Part A will be bankrupt in four years, yet your negotiators still propose to increase Medicare spending with $12 billion of new benefit spending...
...You're not going to release the letter to the press, are you...
...Frustrated with the lack of progress on a deal, Lott arranged to meet secretly with Clinton on the residence floor of the White House on April 18...
...The day after the letter was dispatched, John Hil-ley called Lott's office...
...Given a new revenue estimate, the three agreed to drop any legislated cut in the CPI...
...But this "has not occurred...
...Lott said Clinton's spending plans were exorbitant...
...The difference was they wanted a budget deal and Panetta didn't," Lott insists...
...Now, Republicans have the luxury of saying no to anything Clinton proposes...
...The president twice told Lott: "We'll have to hold hands [on the CPI] and jump off the cliff together...
...Lott was the first person the president called after deciding in January to nominate Alexis Herman as labor secretary...
...The only thing I didn't have was a blindfold...
...Clinton liked the idea, but nothing came of it...
...He had a double purpose...
...To continue the cooperative effort," Lott said, Clinton would have to "take bold steps," particularly shaving back the CPI on his own, without legislation, and reducing his demands for more domestic spending...
...Two days later, the terms were set except for tinkering...
...I don't enjoy my conversations with him at all...
...Flexibility, he says, but not much more...
...Do you think our nation is better off with an agreement, or without one...
...If the specter of political attacks from the left prevents us from making needed changes in Medicare and Medicaid, we will be faced with the unpleasant choice between significant squeezing of non-defense discretionary spending, or abandoning our goal of balancing the budget and cutting taxes...
...I suppose that created some comfort...
...When he called at 7:55 a.m., Lott was told Clinton wasn't up yet...
Vol. 2 • May 1997 • No. 35
