May 23, 1997

Gingrich Is Alive And Well And Guiding Budget Battle

Radical critics both left and right -- having found a comfortable fit for their Newt Gingrich blinders -- profess inability to find the speaker of the House these days.

C-Span groupies know that Mr. Newt is alive and well and still calling the shots on Capitol Hill. Those believing otherwise should note the change in Republican strategy regarding a balanced budget.

Only the Associated Press reported, briefly, Gingrich's speech March 6 to the House leadership. He laid out a 13- item agenda consisting primarily of Contract With America proposals passed by the House but filibustered to death in the Senate.

Gingrich told his party members that the contract was proposed in the 1994 campaign when the Republican agenda "was the commitment of a legislative minority to a specific set of activities in the first 100 days."

He said the new program "is the commitment of a legislative majority to two years of work." Included was the keystone balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

American Conservative Union President David Keene replied that there was "a disquieting feeling that we haven't done enough ... that our leaders aren't strong enough."

White House press secretary Mike McCurry called on Congress to "do their job and revisit the president's budget that scorns a tax cut."

A few days later, the balanced budget proposal was killed once again in the Senate -- this time by two votes instead of one.

With this scalp on his belt, Clinton felt brave enough to revise his budget proposal. First, he asked for a $30 billion hike in taxes on airline tickets. Then he dropped revision of the Consumer Price Index that would cut Social Security a smidgen.

Gingrich has some faults, but tilting windmills is not one of them. He allowed as how the tax cut sought by Republicans -- and promised by Clinton in the campaign last year -- could wait.

With this, the Speaker reiterated his agenda for the House through the "morning orders" privilege. This allows members to speak on any subject for an hour before an empty chamber -- but also before the C-Span television camera which transmits in full without spin.

This was the medium Gingrich employed when a back-bencher to rouse the troops. It is interesting that he returned to this tactic when under attack port and starboard.

The commercial media chortled over Gingrich's apparent retreat on a tax cut and once again ignored his agenda. Liberals assume that if they don't talk about something it doesn't exist.

Gingrich added three new priorities to the House agenda unfinished from the last term:

• Ensure the integrity of American elections.
• Overhaul the Internal Revenue Service.
• End partial-birth abortions.

The White House gang is jubilant that Gingrich seems to have abandoned his quest for a tax cut and a balanced budget amendment.

Overlooked is his pragmatic statement about his new stance: "Let's take tax cuts away for a moment. Now what's the liberal excuse for not balancing the budget?" He declared he would introduce a tax-cut bill on its own merits later.

In legislative battles, timing is everything. It is obvious after the Senate vote there is not enough support among shell-shocked Republicans for budget reform.

Clinton demagogued them on a modest reform to save Medicare and was doing it to them again on cutting taxes ostensibly at the expense of Social Security recipients. Now it's the president's turn at bat.

It is possible that Gingrich and his lieutenants are removing all distractions from Clinton's budget bill so the hocus-pocus figures are naked.

Or, it might be smarter to go all-out for a tax cut and balanced budget amendment next year. Then the Republican effort will be fresh in the minds of voters just before congressional elections.

No one knows whether Gingrich has lost his nerve or is a master strategist. However, those who underestimate him do so at their peril.

The economy is not as robust as the White House would have us believe. Poll approval numbers on basic issues are not as high as Democrats wish. The federal deficit cannot be balanced without pain -- thanks to past spending excesses by Democrat-controlled Congresses.

Liberal hooting about a "timid" Republican majority has all the earmarks of an attempt to goad conservatives into making the hard, unpopular decisions.

Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice, shame on me.

PARTING SHOTS

The Cheyenne-Arapaho Indian tribe of Oklahoma was hit up for a $107,000 campaign donation by the Democratic National Committee to help regain 7,500 acres of reservation taken in 1869 for a U.S. military fort now defunct. Two Indians got a group lunch with President Clinton but not their land. Great White Father speaks with forked tongue.

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A shipping subsidiary of the Chinese government -- guilty of smuggling assault guns to U.S. street gangs, but a generous contributor to the Clinton-Gore campaign -- has leased a former naval base at Long Beach, Calif. It is uncertain whether we will get docking rights at Hong Kong.

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Tony Lake, former National Security Advisor at the White House, withdrew from consideration for CIA director when the Senate confirmation committee sought his FBI file. He complained that Washington politics was "haywire." How odd. Billy Dale, manager of the White House travel office, said the same thing when Mrs. Clinton sicked the FBI on him.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers