Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 29, 1993 TAG: 9311290032
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
In a triumph of substance over style, President Clinton and the 103rd Congress broke through the legislative gridlock that has gripped Washington in recent years, stumbling to one of the most fruitful first years of an administration in decades.
While the record does not leave behind such legislative monuments as the interstate highway system of the 1950s or the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, Congress churned out bills addressing some of the nation's biggest problems - and put others on track for action next year.
It enacted nearly $500 billion in tax increases and budget savings to reduce the deficit and funded most of Clinton's "investment" initiatives to pour more money into education, health and roads and bridges.
It approved a North American free-trade zone - the world's largest - that will phase out tariffs among the United States, Canada and Mexico over 15 years, beginning in January.
It created a new national service program to involve young people in community endeavors in exchange for higher education aid, along with measures to give workers leave for family medical emergencies, liberalize voting laws and ease the longstanding ban on federal workers' participation in partisan politics.
It enacted a nationwide waiting period of five business days for purchase of handguns.
It celebrated the end of the Cold War - upon which the United States had spent trillions of dollars over the last half-century - by giving $2.5 billion to help republics of the former Soviet Union achieve democracy and free-market economies.
And, to the surprise of those who thought it never could be done, legislators even killed a big federal program: the $11 billion superconducting super collider under construction in Texas.
But their shambling performance - the early mishaps, the later near-misses and the continual distractions, deals and conflicting messages - took a lot of the glow off what would otherwise be a session of formidable accomplishment.
Moreover, the bruised sensitivities of Democrats as well as Republicans pose problems as Clinton and Congress head into their biggest test of all in next year's ambitious effort to restructure the nation's health-care system.
Many lawmakers see health-care reform as a make-or-break issue, not just for Clinton but also for Congress in its effort to regain public confidence in its ability to do the nation's business.
This year, in part because there was no longer a Republican at the White House to block initiatives from a Democratic Congress, Clinton won a greater proportion of his first-year legislative fights than any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Clinton's rocky start - including the controversy over homosexuals in the military, his difficulty finding an attorney general without "nanny" problems and defeat of his economic stimulus program - gradually gave way to big victories on bigger issues like deficit reduction and NAFTA.
The results of the year's efforts resembled a rich but themeless pudding cooked up by a team of quarrelsome cooks, who left the kitchen in a bit of a mess.
Some of the victories were achieved at substantial cost, including real dollars for pork-barrel deals and the less tangible currency of political capital and public image. Most costly of all may be the notion that the administration is a soft touch for political favors.
At the end as well as the beginning, it seemed that, when Clinton was not damaging his Democratic base, he was straining relations with Republicans, and vice versa. He relied solely on Democrats to pass his tax-and-spending proposals, alienating Republicans in the process. He depended mostly on Republicans to pass NAFTA, angering many Democrats. He will need a coalition of both for next year's battles over new welfare and job-training legislation, as well as health care.
by CNB