DATE: Monday, March 24, 1997                TAG: 9703220016

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   42 lines

BLUEPRINT AVAILABLE BOTH SIDES HAVE BEGUN TO FLINCH FROM REINING IN EXCESSIVE COST-OF-LIVING ADJUSTMENTS TO ENTITLEMENTS.

The essential business of the 105th Congress and the Clinton second term is to put the federal government's fiscal house in order. Yet the same old roadblocks to a balanced budget are in place.

Both sides have begun to flinch from reining in excessive cost-of-living adjustments to entitlements in response to pressure from seniors. Republicans want a tax cut, and when House Speaker Newt Gingrich echoed the views of his whip, Tom DeLay, last week in saying balance ought to come before tax cuts, he was scorned and anathematized.

Meanwhile, Clinton's budget is a phony that is tens of billions out of balance and saves the heavy lifting until he's out of office. When GOP and administration leaders got eyeball to eyeball last week, nobody blinked.

No wonder. Each side wants to slash spending on the opposing party's pet programs while protecting those dear to its own special interests. That only guarantees perpetual antagonism. The real solution is the same as it's always been - an equitable sharing of the pain. No tax cuts until revenues exceed outlays. Scaling back entitlements for fat cats as well as for senior citizens and the poor.

In fact, as we have repeatedly stressed, there is already an existing budget blueprint that would take this approach. It's the work of the so-called Blue Dogs - a couple dozen fiscally conservative Democrats who could make a majority if teamed with enough like-minded Republicans and centrist Dems.

Not surprisingly, fiscally conservative Virginia is the home to several of the Blues - Reps. Owen B. Pickett, Norman Sisisky and Virgil Goode. They may be the last best hope for a federal government that is willing to live within its means and get the deficit under control.

The next time GOP leaders and Clinton are staring unblinkingly at one another and neither side is willing to budge to break the impasse, someone could do the country a favor by throwing the Blue Dog budget on the table. It's said that every dog must have his day. We believe the day of the Blue Dogs has arrived.

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