The upshot, at the weekend, was that the administration seemed divided between pragmatists like budget director Leon Panetta, who want the president to play it safe, and idealists like Hillary Rodham Clinton, who want him to go for it all. There are potentially big risks, and big gains, either way. If Clinton pushes forward, taking his case for health-care reform to the voters, he could reignite the optimism of his first days in office and force Congress to do his bidding. But if he fails-if the voters don’t rally and Congress doesn’t roll-he could lose his political momentum and perhaps his health plan, too. Given his steady decline in the polls, Clinton desperately needs a win. As a result, one White House staffer says, the seemingly narrow question of timing may be a defining moment of the still-young Clinton presidency.
The specific issue is an impending collision between the two biggest priorities of Clinton’s first year in office, controlling the deficit and health reform. The Clinton deficit plan, now drafted as a mammoth budget bill in the House, is in some danger of coming unraveled. Panetta and other Beltway veterans think its political prospects will only get worse if the administration pops its health-care plan, which will include new taxes, on Congress’s plate before the deficit deal is done. “We need every vote we can get,” one House leader said last week. “We can’t talk about healthcare financing, or we’ll lose a bunch of members.”
This was the message that Clinton heard over and over again last week. He heard it first from Panetta, the most prominent “deficit hawk” within the administration. Panetta fairly rocked Washington with a deeply pessimistic-and on-the-record assessment of Clinton’s relations with Congress, warning his boss to hold off on pushing health-care reform until his economic plan had cleared the House and Senate. Panetta also said the North American Free Trade Agreement, which would create a common market with Canada and Mexico was probably “dead” in Congress, and he added that he was “very nervous” about the nation’s economic health. Most of all, Panetta said, Clinton could salvage his legislative program only if he “defines his priorities” more clearly–which is exactly what many old hands in Washington, and at least some of Clinton’s economic advisers, also think.
White House sources said Clinton at first reacted angrily to Panetta’s apostasy. But the president was Mr. Mellow the next day, telling reporters that Panetta had “had a bad day” and that he only wanted to “buck him up,” not “take him to the woodshed.” Clinton also restated his intention to announce his long-awaited plan for health reform on schedule-which means sometime later this month, possibly in a speech before a joint session of Congress on May 25. The White House in fact is already gearing up for a nationwide health-reform blitz complete with multiple appearances by Clinton and Hillary and a specially formed political marketing organization spun off from the Democratic National Committee. This group, modeled on the “interactive” campaigns pioneered by Jerry Brown and Ross Perot, will employ an 800-number for citizen-volunteers and promote the formation of grass-roots coalitions to pressure Congress. And while some are wary of a multimillion-dollar “disinformation” campaign from the special interests, a senior White House aide said, “We have the president, and we have millions of Americans who want the system changed.”
That much is certainly true. But what Clinton doesn’t have -and it matters a lot-is solid support on the Hill. The problem, in part, is that Senate Republicans are successfully waging parliamentary guerrilla war against the Clinton program: led by Sen. Bob Dole, the GOP last month managed to wreck Clinton’s economic-stimulus package with a filibuster. But the real problem is the Democrats, who must somehow hold the line against the GOP and, it can fairly be said, swallow their doubts about the administration’s priorities. Last week-shortly after the president’s vow to push ahead on health reform-Rep. Dan Rostenkowski delivered a highly disparaging view of the Clinton health plan. Rostenkowski, who as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is a pivotal player on both issues, said the administration’s health plan was “the domestic equivalent of Star Wars” because it includes “elaborate linkages between several different institutions, none of which exist here or anywhere else.”
Although an aide later insisted that Rostenkowski actually supports Clinton’s determination to move quickly on healthcare, there was no mistaking the message in the chairman’s stinging choice of words. There is, similarly, little doubt that Rostenkowski and many other Democratic leaders see health-care reform as a gargantuan tasktoo much for anyone legislative year. House leaders have promised to fast-track the budget, and the administration is trying to get Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to make the same commitment. But the Clinton budget plan contains highly controversial elements, such as a new energy tax and higher taxes on the social-security benefits paid to upscale retirees, and the Ways and Means Committee has barely begun its work. According to committee sources, Rostenkowski has recently been heard to shout, “Don’t talk to me about health care until we’re done with [the budget]-don’t mix’em up.”
White House aide Bruce Lindsey, one of Clinton’s closest advisers, got the same message when he toured Capitol Hill last week. And Hillary Clinton, who briefed a bipartisan group of senators on health reform, reportedly faced tough questioning by Republicans and polite skepticism from some Democrats when she said the new program would cost less than $100 billion in new spending. The timing of Clinton’s health-care offensive, one White House aide said, must now be regarded as “a real crapshoot, and the fact that the First Lady is running it raises the stakes.” The real question is whether Clinton can break the gridlock and get Congress moving again-and that, as always, takes the kind of decision making that only a shrewd and determined president can provide.
Would you favor or oppose additional taxes to pay for reforming and expanding health care in the United States?
CURRENT 3/26 Favor 56% 50% Oppose 37% 47%
Is Clinton taking on too many issues as president?
59% yes 56% No
From the NEWSWEEK Poll of April 29-30, 1993
