Washington: Deficit Chickens

Rick Henderson from the February 1994 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

Penny expressed surprise that the administration would put on such an intensive lobbying campaign to defeat a bill that might be picked apart in the Senate or that Clinton could veto. But the last thing Clinton wanted to do was veto a true spending-cut package, no matter how modest. It would be easier to derail the bill in the House than to publicly oppose deficit reduction.

Special-interest pleaders--the American Legion, the American Association of Retired Persons--sent letters and orchestrated phone calls to congressional offices. When the amendment was debated on the floor of the House, several members held up stacks of letters they had received from pro-spending groups. Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said he received 62 letters from special-interest groups in the four days preceding the vote. Even The New York Times editorial page, which had praised Kasich's earlier budget alternative, said, "Congress would do grave damage if it passed the Penny-Kasich bill."

Inside the House, Budget Committee Chairman Martin Sabo (D-Minn.) circulated a nine-page attack, headed by a "Dear Colleague" letter titled, "Penny-Kasich kills health care reform." He claimed the increased Medicare charges for upper-income Americans was "a tax on the sick."

A handful of moderate Republicans on the Appropriations Committee also did their best to sabotage the plan. Under the co-signatures of the ranking Democrats, three ranking Republican members on appropriations subcommittees, Iowa's Jim Lightfoot, Indiana's John Myers, and New Mexico's Joe Skeen, sent letters to Republicans, threatening to cut funding to projects in Republican districts if the members voted for Penny-Kasich. The Washington Times reproduced one of the letters. Penny said the lobbying campaign was "almost enough to make me vomit."

White House criticism of the spending cuts rang hollow: The same day Panetta and Rivlin hyperventilated to the press corps, Medicare administrator Bruce C. Vladeck testified before a congressional subcommittee on the $124 billion in Medicare cuts Clinton has proposed. Vladeck said cuts of that magnitude--more than three times the cuts in Penny-Kasich--"will only reduce the growth in Medicare spending from triple the inflation rate to double," without "putting Medicare beneficiaries at risk."

Meanwhile, Penny and Kasich tried to make the proposal more palatable to hawkish Democrats. They exempted current military and civilian federal employees from the retirement cuts; only persons who enlisted or were hired after January 1, 1994, would face their restrictions. (This reduced Penny-Kasich's deficit reductions from $103 billion to $90 billion.)

To allow full debate and a vote on a campaign-finance bill, Foley initially delayed the Penny-Kasich vote until Friday, November 20. Democratic leaders made a head count on the 18th. The amendment looked as if it might pass. Foley then postponed the vote until Monday the 22nd, hoping somebody could derail the plan.

The panic that ensued is reminiscent of the scene in Blazing Saddles in which a frenzied Gov. William J. Le Petomane (Mel Brooks) tells a room full of his cronies, "We've got to protect our phoney-baloney jobs."

The White House increased the cuts in its rescission package from $12 billion over five years to $37 billion by incorporating the proposals in the National Performance Review. And the House Rules Committee proposed an inventive way to dampen the spending-cut fever. In a secret meeting, the committee voted to allow only three amendments to get to the floor: Clinton's enhanced plan (which was sponsored by Sabo), Penny-Kasich, and a $51-billion amendment sponsored by Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) that reduced overseas military spending and eliminated several big-science projects. Neither the Clinton plan nor Frank-Shays earmarked their budget cuts for deficit reduction.

This rule also gave Clinton and Foley a chance to renege on their agreement with the moderates: Because these amendments weren't vetted by the Ways and Means and Appropriations committees (where they would have been picked apart), the Rules Committee's plan had to be approved by the entire House. Otherwise no spending-cut amendment would have been presented.

Given the chance, other members would have offered amendments. For instance, Rep. Dick Zimmer (R-N.J) proposed repealing $60 billion in taxes from the Clinton budget--retroactive taxes, Social Security increases, and the 4.3-cent gas tax. Another amendment by Rep. Steve Horn (R-Calif.) would have instituted a "flexible freeze" until fiscal year 2000. These proposals were shut out.

The rule passed the entire House, though not without grumbling from Republicans. On the floor, Kasich said, "I think the rule stinks, but [I support it] because it's the only way we'll get to vote for Penny-Kasich."

When the debate on the Sabo and Penny-Kasich amendments began, apocalyptic language flew. Opponents of Penny-Kasich paraded representatives of every spending interest imaginable: the elderly, the poor, environmentalists, veterans, teachers. They acted as if the end of Western Civilization were nigh. Foes called Penny-Kasich "draconian," "dangerous," "sick," "mean-sprited," "a sham," "a burning bush that threatens to consume us all."

Some old war horses trotted out to trash the plan. Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.): "When we disregard regular order, we do so at our peril." Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.): Penny-Kasich "eviscerates our national crime strategy."

Then there was the rambling harangue by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.). Dingell railed against the Penny-Kasich task force as a group who suffered from a "complete unawareness of what they're doing" and had created a "fiscally irresponsible monster."