Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 15, 1995 TAG: 9511150033
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
President Clinton doubtless is bolstered in his pursuit of (a) by a recent poll showing that 7 percent of Americans hold him principally at fault for the mess in Washington, while 35 percent blame Congress. And that was before the partial shutdown of the federal government Tuesday, a result of GOP congressional leaders' attempt to use temporary debt and spending extensions to force the administration to accept their budget cuts and increase Medicare premiums.
No one, however, looks good in this sorry spectacle, wherein each side has shown less interest in resolving the conflict than in winning a blame game against the other.
The president vetoed a continuing resolution to keep the government operating, he said, because he had to protect senior citizens from a GOP proposal, attached to the resolution, that would raise Medicare premiums.
Protecting Medicare from Republicans is the Democrats' all-purpose substitute for a positive plan or vision of leadership these days. But that hardly explains why the difference between a raise in premiums (under Clinton's plan) and a somewhat higher raise in premiums (under the GOP plan) marks a fundamental policy difference requiring the uncharacteristic firmness Clinton has adopted. (``I'm fighting it today, I'll fight it tomorrow," he declares, in poor imitation of Churchill.)
Meanwhile, having for decades criticized Democrats for attaching unrelated riders to continuing resolutions, the Republicans have done the same. To a bill raising the debt-ceiling last week, for example, they added a 112-page amendment overturning federal regulatory policy. They knew they couldn't get this through Congress the normal way. They knew Clinton would veto the encumbered bill. Their extortion shouldn't be mistaken for devotion to principle. It's about making political points in anticipation of 1996.
Substantive differences do divide the White House and Republicans, of course, and the significance of these should not be belittled. Nevertheless, the work of reaching compromise on the budget plan itself, in particular to alleviate its contemptible effects on the poor and near-poor, awaits resolution of the political charade.
The showdown between the president and Messrs. Dole and Gingrich has been likened to "High Noon," but it probably comes across to the public more like "The Three Stooges on Mars." Both sides in the squabble seem blind to the possibility that citizens care less about attaching blame than about the capacity of elected officials to act like grown-up public servants.
by CNB