State Of The U. And O.J., Too!

By Charles Bierbauer/CNN

WASHINGTON (Feb. 7) -- What's a person to do? Take a seat as an eyewitness to history? Or take a peek as a voyeur to his story?

This is why TV remotes were made. All over America, I suppose -- certainly all over Washington -- television viewers sat with clickers in hand, a blur of thumbs, flipping between President Bill Clinton's State of the Union address and O.J. Simpson's judgment.

Thanks to technology -- the proliferation of cable news choices, picture-within-a-picture television screens -- you could do both. Networks with more than one channel -- CNN and NBC -- could deliver both and did.

The coincidence of two major news stories this week may have caused some tense moments in network executive suites and control rooms. But the "what-do-we-do-now" dilemmas and decisions are what make live television exciting, even fun.

Network ratings went up. The president, of course, should not kid himself to think he had anything to do with that. Suspense will almost always outrate ceremony. Presidents are pretty predictable. Juries are a 50-50 proposition. Senators coming out of the chamber after the speech wanted to know the O.J. outcome.

These were not events of equal moment, though each has lasting consequences on the nation's systems of law and government. Simpson's second term in court not only produced a different verdict but was conducted in an entirely different atmosphere. There was, to be sure, less hype in the civil case. The legal teams had a lower profile. Television cameras had no courtroom profile.

Without cameras, President Clinton would have had to go door-to-door to tell the state of the union. He declared it "strong." Now what's the lasting consequence of Clinton's verdict?

The president spent more time on education than any other issue. He presented the program of tax cuts and expenditures he hopes will make college more accessible and affordable for young Americans and public education more effective in preparing them for college.

This is on the legacy agenda. And admirably so. Who doesn't want our kids to be better prepared for their uncertain future and, therefore, better able to help us through ours?

George Bush declared: "I want to be the education President." In 1989 Bush held a high-level education summit; Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas was there. But Bush never completed the course.

Now Clinton has set sights on the same title, with more modest goals. America's children should be able to read by age eight, log on to the Internet by 12, go to college at 18. It's an easy litany, and hardly anyone faults the president for encouraging it.

Public education, though, is a jealously guarded prerogative of state and local governments. Clinton has merely poked his nose into the classroom. He wants to hook it up to the Internet. Put the kids in uniforms; end keds envy. This is tinkering at the margins.

Clinton says nothing about private schools. He opposes school choice -- a Republican mantra -- while supporting more public charter schools, a choice of sorts.

He endorses national, but not federal standards for education. This will send English teachers to their thesauruses. The governors of most states have already told Clinton -- at his education summit -- that they'll set the standards. Some have even rejected federal money to assist them in doing that.

Clinton has put most of his fiscal rewards for education into tax incentives:

• A $1,500 tax credit for the equivalent of at least a community college education.
• Up to $10,000 in tax deductions for the cost of college tuition or training.

These could help millions attend college. They would cost billions over the next five years when both Clinton and Congress say they will balance the federal budget. Expect Republicans to challenge this targeted tax cut, though they themselves will seek even bigger and broader tax reductions.

For all the words in the president's hour-long address Tuesday, it's the numbers in the 1998 budget he delivered Thursday that count.

At $1.7 trillion it is made up of a million parts. Clinton's number crunchers even project a surplus -- $17 billion -- in 2002.

Many key parts of the president's budget were well known before its presentation, a result of the White House carefully releasing or leaking elements in advance. The budget produced harsh -- though sometimes contradictory reactions -- on Capitol Hill.

The Republicans had telegraphed their intention to call this budget "alive on arrival" -- DOA has been the standard prognosis in recent years. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have fairly shouted they'd find bipartisan cooperation to make it work and balance. Party leaders reportedly even held the traditionally partisan boos and catcalls in check during the State of the Union.

Then came the budget.

"I am gravely depressed about what I have seen," Majority Leader Trent Lott lamented after taking a day to review the numbers. "So much of this budget is recooked from last year."

Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete Domenici seemed most torn, even by his own words. Domenici, who always seems a reluctant attack dog, said he was "not dumping on the budget," then dumped on it. Though he said it was a "very good starting point," he also said he was "very discouraged."

A lengthy budget-writing process looms. House Budget Committee chairman John Kasich said the Republicans would offer their own version.

A couple of hints:

• It will balance in 2002, with bigger tax cuts and smaller spending.
• It will seek bigger savings from Medicare.
• It will take the president's opening on capital gains tax breaks -- Clinton's is solely for home sales -- and go for more on rate reductions.
• It will not propose a downward adjustment in the Consumer Price Index, though some economists think hundreds of billons could be saved by lowering cost of living adjustments -- COLAs -- by just 1 percent.

Republicans hint a CPI adjustment could enter the bargaining in the weeks ahead and be a key to reaching agreement on a genuinely balanced budget.

By week's end the O.J. trial had moved to a new phase, a judgment over how much Simpson was worth and might have to pay and whether it would put him in debt.

On that score O.J. can't come close to sharing the attention. No one does debt like government does debt.

But debt isn't as compelling viewing either. Thank goodness the networks had near-misses in the skies over New Jersey and hostages in Philadelphia to split the screen.