THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603230016
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
The to-and-fro over a federal budget for 1996 and a blueprint for reaching balance in seven years has been wearying. But that's the way compromises are crafted when Democrats and Republicans collide.
To his credit, President Clinton made headway on deficit reduction in his first two years, but for fiscal 1996, when further deficit reduction required reining in entitlements, he flinched. Worse, when Republicans had the courage to try, he demagogued the issue.
Republican revolutionaries opened themselves to Clinton's counterattack by overreaching. They ignored the need to educate the public, imagined a more sweeping mandate than they possessed and underestimated anxiety about a fraying safety net and enthusiasm for environmental protection and education.
Meanwhile, Clinton has been compromising bit by bit while claiming to hold the line against the barbarians. His latest attempt at a budget achieves balance in seven years when scored by the Congressional Budget Office, a longstanding GOP demand.
The Clinton method is to offer less in both tax cuts and entitlement spending reductions than the Republicans. Under Clinton's plan, Medicare spending would be reduced by $124 billion and Medicaid by $59 billion. That's more than anyone would have predicted two years ago, but Republicans refuse to declare victory.
On taxes, Clinton offers a cut worth $107 billion. It skews more toward the middle class than do GOP cuts. Clinton would not reduce capital-gains taxes as Republicans wish. Instead, he promises breaks for children under 13, college tuition and retirement savings.
Those may have appeal but perpetuate a system corrupted by endless loopholes, credits and deductions that politicians hand out in exchange for campaign contributions or votes. Tax reform shouldn't substitute one loophole for another. It should eliminate most. Besides, at a time of deficits, tax cuts make no sense. Unless it's an election year.
There's the rub. The budgets now on the table are more political than economic documents. Compromise may still be possible, but the window of opportunity won't last long with Clinton in the White House and the man trying to take his job running negotiations from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
That's a pity. Progress is needed more than posturing. The Republicans complain that the Clinton budget shamelessly backloads the process so that 60 percent of the painful cuts aren't made until after the end of a second Clinton term, should he win one. But the GOP is guilty of a similar strategy. And no budget now on the table addresses the fact that after seven years entitlement spending will explode again, as baby boomers retire.
Still, the lack of a solution to all budget problems is no excuse for solving none. Clinton notes that both sides now agree on $700 billion in spending reductions. Those should be enacted now. Delaying action for another year of politics is the last thing the country needs. by CNB