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Looking For Budget Progress
Clinton meets with lawmakers on budget proposal
By Gene Randall/CNN
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, March 19) -- On the eve of his Helsinki summit with Russia's Boris Yeltsin, President Bill Clinton took time to try to unsnarl the impasse over his proposed budget.(192K WAV file)
Apparently heartened by what he calls a new Republican flexibility on taxes and economic assumptions, the president met with the GOP chairmen and the ranking Democrats of the House and Senate budget-writing committees.
Afterward, Clinton told reporters he wants to be ready after Congress' Easter recess to make rapid progress on a balanced budget agreement.
During the recess, Clinton said, lawmakers and the administration will try to narrow their differences over Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs and general domestic spending and revenue projections.
"We agree on the goal; we've agreed on a schedule to start discussion," Clinton said. "Now comes the hard work of writing the agreement, dollar by dollar, program by program, issue by issue. We have circled these issues long enough. It's time now to give the American people a balanced budget and I believe we will do it and do it this year." (256K WAV file)
At issue in the meeting was how to restart formal talks on Clinton's budget, which Republicans have rejected as undoable. Among the sparks for the White House session was House Speaker Newt Gingrich's plan to temporarily take his party's sweeping tax cut demand off the table, putting his energy first into reaching a balanced budget agreement.
Gingrich's position has provoked a storm of protest among many of his GOP colleagues. Some have charged him with a willingness to sell out on an issue dear to their hearts, a notion some Gingrich allies have tried to rule out.
"No one should be confused that in fact the Republican party continues to stand for lower taxes for all Americans," said House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-Ohio.)
But Gingrich's own House Majority Leader Dick Armey has taken him to task for not airing his high-risk change of tactics in the privacy of a closed leadership meeting.
Over on the Senate side, Majority Leader Trent Lott reflected much the same thing. "I think that's kind of what happened; we got, what's the word, fulminating out loud a little bit too much," Lott said.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) used the Republican divisions over taxes for some political prodding.
"The only thing real that they had that had any relationship to a budget was a tax plan that the majority leader introduced, and now that's even in doubt," Daschle said. "Now it appears that they're pulling that back, so I'm not sure what's real and what isn't from the Republican perspective."
Complicating the budget situation is the president's decision against a commission to study a downward revision in the Consumer Price Index, which would reduce cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients and trim other federal benefits.
Lott said reaching a balanced budget is much harder without the CPI on the table.
"I stuck my neck out there on the CPI," he said. "Nothing happened there. That's over. That phase of effort is over. We will continue to work with them, and I still harbor incurable optimism."
Gingrich's neck is also out there. His popularity among his GOP colleagues is already corroded by his ethics problems. If his move on taxes eats away further at his base, high risk may take on a whole new meaning for the House speaker.