It was partly the need to control the growth of federal spending. And partly the need to get the government back to work before the voters notice that 280,000 bureaucrats are idle and the Treasury Department is juggling the accounts to pay Washington’s bills. On a more practical level, however, the three had to be there; without meeting, there could be no exit strategy that would save their own political skins. All three realize they stand to suffer with the voters ff they can’t get out of the budget mess-soon.
On Friday night both White House and Hill spokesmen gave ritual assurances that the president and congressional leaders were optimistic. Earlier in the day, White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, House Budget chairman John Kasieh and Senate Budget chairman Pete Domenici had settled a number of small items that brought them $70 billion closer to agreement. The talks could still fall apart like a cheap Christmas toy. But as the federal shutdown entered its third week, there were signs of a genuine willingness to bargain.
The shape of the deal that would end the impasse is not hard to see. The Republicans have to give up at least half of their $218 billion tax cut, especially breaks for corporations and the wealthy. Clinton has to accept deeper cuts in the growth of Medicare and Medicaid and agree to use credible assumptions about the economy over the next few years instead of the usual rosy scenarios. Both sides have to split the difference on a variety of other spending. Then everyone can declare victory.
It’s not that simple, of course. There are genuine philosophical differences to work out. The GOP wants to abolish health care and welfare as a federally guaranteed “entitlement” for the poor, and let the states pick up the responsibility. Clinton remains adamantly opposed. And even if the three leaders work out a deal, there is a risk it could be derailed on the floor.
Still, it appeared last week that even the Shiites, as the hard-core House freshmen Republicans are called in Washington, were standing down somewhat. When they returned from facing sullen voters over Christmas, they offered to compromise on tax cuts. NEWSWEEK has learned that an internal GOP poll showed that if the Republicans don’t get a balanced-budget agreement, their own party faithful may rebel at the polls.
Gingrich just wants to get out of the crisis before his once exalted reputation sinks any lower. Friends say he isn’t sleeping, his face is puffy and saggy, and he seems downcast. He is ill at ease as a dealmaker. “Negotiations like these are not part of the process Newt likes,” Rep. Robert Walker, Gingrich’s closest friend in Congress, told NEWSWEEK. “He’s a visionary. When you get down to the details, he gets frustrated pretty quickly.”
Dole is a dealmaker by temperament. He needs to wind up the negotiations for the simple reason that he cannot afford to be in Washington a month before the first primaries. “Don’t you need to be in Iowa?” a reporter asked him last week. “No,” he answered. After a long pause, he muttered, “New Hampshire.”
As for Clinton, a breakdown in the talks would throw the stock market into a tailspin and increase interest rates. No president can afford that in an election year. So Clinton and some of his advisers want a deal, arguing that voters won’t understand a tedious squabble over economic assumptions. Dick Morris, Clinton’s chief political strategist, has always told Clinton that he has to be seen as a budget balancer.
All of this would seem to make an agreement between Clinton, Dole and Gingrich likely. The problem is that they, and their aides, generally detest and distrust each other. Gingrich recently went on a tirade in a closed-door party caucus, calling Clinton a “liar” and “despicable.” “These are closer to the negotiations between divorce lawyers whose clients hate one another than they are a handshake between two brothers over what to do with the family estate,” said Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s spokesman. In the Senate, Democrats harbor a special malice for Gingrich. Over a Democratic computer network, a budget staffer circulated a mean and profane poem, “The Gingrich That Stole Christmas,” that concluded: “Probably what most explained the man’s life/was that he abandoned his children and wife.”
White House aides, meanwhile, are demonizing the GOP House freshmen. Why not invite the freshmen to the talks? a reporter asked Clinton spokesman Mike Mc-Curry. “A frightening thought,” he replied. Clinton himself remains suspicious of GOP hard-liners. When Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi told a crowd back home in Biloxi that it would be easy to just split the difference on Medicare, Clinton scoffed to aides, “If Trent Lott thinks that’s the deal he’s going to sell me, he’s got another think coming. Either that or he thinks I’ve never been in a negotiation in my life.”
The real exit strategy may be Bob Dole. As hopes for a baby-boomer kinship with Gingrich have soured, Clinton has developed a grudging respect for his prospective foe in the 1996 presidential race. The White House believes it could get a deal with Dole in about half an hour. “Maybe you and I should fly down to Florida and solve this thing,” Clinton joked to the senator in a recent phone call. Both Clinton and Dole understand they have to try to get along while they can. They will be bashing each other on the campaign trail soon enough.
