Washington Goes on a Spending Spree
An extra $100 billion in pork and programs
There is ample evidence of that. The huge surpluses projected over the next decade--$268 billion next year--may have forever changed politics in Washington. The result is a kind of giddiness. "The surplus is burning a hole in our pocket. It is affecting our judgment," says Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas.
Pork vs. programs. The White House, which has turned late-session budget negotiating into a primer on political arm-twisting, seems on target for its best year yet. Already Clinton and his campaigning vice president have landed $12 billion to fund six years of conservation projects intended to protect urban parks, recreational green space, forests, and coastal areas. And after long and bitter GOP opposition, there is now wide agreement that Clinton will extract a minimum-wage hike to $6.15 an hour. "He'll get everything he wants," said one Hill Republican.
Despite a dramatic GOP call for allotting 90 percent of next year's surplus for debt reduction, a generally chaotic budget process has stymied Republican efforts to hold their own spending in check. "The longer the process goes, the more leverage the president has," says Reischauer, "and the dynamic that is developing with the Republicans is that `if he is getting away with murder, we should be able to commit it, too.' " Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel told Congressional Quarterly: "We are actually putting more money in some of these appropriations bills than Clinton wants." And Clinton wants a lot--$621 billion in discretionary spending out of his total budget of $1.83 trillion. For example, the president wants $8 million for preservation of historic buildings at black colleges and $850 million to reduce class sizes in the nation's schools. The GOP refused many of Clinton's requests, and therein lies the standoff.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been fighting a losing battle with the Senate and the White House to get the budget bill done. The usually difficult appropriations process is made more difficult by the flush times. "It's tough to be disciplined because every good idea comes along and there is no wall," Hastert says, "You say `No' a lot and people say, `Why not? Here's the money. Let's do it.' "
Hastert has resorted to cookie theory to explain his aspirations for the surplus. After lunch one day recently he told his guests: "Look at that plate of cookies on the table. Everybody is entitled to a cookie or two cookies or three cookies, but when we leave, my staff comes in and the cleanup crew comes in and there will be no cookies left on that plate. Because they're there, they'll eat them all, and the surplus is the same way. Our job is to take the cookies off the table." Asked how much money Congress will leave on the table this year, Hastert says it'll be more than the $600 billion in the spring budget resolution. And he sounds absolutely convinced when he says: "It won't be $650 billion."
But conviction is an unreliable commodity in Washington these days, especially when money is involved.
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