Washington: Deficit Chickens

Rick Henderson from the February 1994 issue

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What obviously stuck in Dingell's craw was the proposed Department of Science, which he ranted about as he pointed to a chart of its likely organization. Had Penny-Kasich passed, Dingell would have lost his power to micromange three cabinet-level agencies. Or at least, he would have had to carve away territory from Science, Space, and Technology Chairman George Brown (D-Calif.).

Supporters of the plan attacked the hyperactive rhetoric. Minority Whip Newt Gingrich said opponents of the bill were arguing, "If you vote for a penny in cuts that are real...the Corps of Engineers [will be] smaller than it was when Robert E. Lee was a colonel in St. Louis." Martin Hoke (R-Ohio) noted that Clinton's budget will "increase spending by 20 percent over the the next five years. Instead, [Penny-Kasich will] increase spending by 19 percent."

Much of the passion for Penny-Kasich came from Democrats. Stenholm: "The same people who opposed the balanced-budget amendment because it didn't make hard choices oppose [Penny-Kasich] because it makes hard choices." Gary Condit (D-Calif.): "One of the things I worry least about is that Congress will pass enough deficit reduction to hamper the economy." Margolies-Mezvinsky: "This isn't about President Clinton's future. It's about Chelsea's."

Stenholm and McCurdy tried to reassure their hawkish colleagues that the defense cuts in the plan weren't too severe. They did not prevail. The amendment lost, 213-219, with only 57 Democratic votes. (Eighteen Republicans voted against Penny-Kasich. And while 43 of 48 Republican freshmen voted for the amendment, they were joined by only 21 of the 66 Democratic freshmen.)

The Penny-Kasich plan was extraordinary for two reasons: It reached the floor of the House for a vote, and it almost passed. In a telephone interview the day after the vote, Penny told me "defense Democrats" and Republican appropriators cost them the vote. "If the Republicans had voted as a bloc, we could have won with 45 Democrats."

What happens next? "The first person to call me when I returned to my office [after the vote] was Sen. Bob Kerrey," Penny says. If the Kerrey-Brown package gets through the Senate, the House will get another shot at deficit reduction. "There's also next year's budget resolution," he says.

"If we had lost by a large margin," says Penny, "I would have been bitter. But we were only four votes short." And he says the fight for spending cuts "wasn't a waste of time. It challenged the status quo and threatened the Washington power brokers."

Meeting with reporters right after the vote, Penny was asked if he regretted voting for the president's budget. "I'm beginning to," he said.