Wait Till Next Year

By WALTER SHAPIRO

"Rose Garden rubbish." Up to now that richly evocative phrase has been used exclusively to describe what political lexicographer William Safire calls the "supposedly ad-lib remarks made by the President on minor occasions." But that was before George Bush and a phalanx of congressional leaders strolled into the Rose Garden last Friday morning to announce that they had hammered out the 1990 budget concordat. Now, in updated fashion, Rose Garden rubbish can also be defined as "the unveiling of a cynical, bipartisan arrangement to avoid difficult decisions on the deficit through the use of artful arithmetic, Panglossian projections and other green-eyeshade gimmickry."

To be fair, there was little of the shamelessly self-congratulatory rhetoric that normally consecrates such empty agreements. The President called the budget pact a "first, manageable step" taken "in a constructive, bipartisan spirit." The Democrats reflected mild embarrassment over the ease with which they had capitulated to Bush's no-new-taxes pledge, something close to the Administration's defense-spending target and budget chief Richard Darman's strategy of forcing Congress to make the fiscally necessary but unpopular cuts in domestic programs. "This is not a heroic agreement," said House Speaker Jim Wright, putting it mildly. And Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell cautioned, "No one should be deluded into thinking that this is the end of a process."

But is it even a real beginning? In theory, this broad-brush budget outline would comply with the Gramm-Rudman statutory requirement by reducing the deficit to $108 billion in 1990. A more realistic estimate puts the budgetary red ink at close to $130 billion. But numbers cannot convey the political timidity of the President and Congress in stubbornly holding the line against a tax hike, protecting most entitlements and refusing to make more than token trims in domestic and defense outlays. The Rose Garden agreement, in short, has spawned a Sixteen Tons budget that, to paraphrase the 1950s Tennessee Ernie Ford hit, will just leave the Government "another year older and deeper in debt."

What the budget deal represents is the clearest evidence so far of the rules of engagement between the new President and the Democratic Congress. Unlike Ronald Reagan, who blamed Capitol Hill for everything but the depletion of the ozone layer, Bush by temperament and political calculation seems determined to avoid unnecessary and melodramatic showdowns. So far, the President has behaved like a loyal member of the congressional alumni association who wants to prove that he is still one of the guys despite his fancy new digs on Pennsylvania Avenue. Bush intends to block ambitious Democratic schemes to mandate that business provide such universal benefits as health insurance, but he is prepared to negotiate with Congress on consensus issues like the environment. As Fred McClure, the White House legislative liaison, puts it, "Assuming we can get them on board, and it goes in the direction of where we want to go, there's no point in going through a lot of confrontation."

With the White House a seemingly permanent Republican bastion, the posture of congressional Democrats has become a defensive crouch. The ethical problems of House Speaker Wright further erode Democratic self-confidence. Small wonder a widespread reaction to the budget pact was relief. "What did we gain?" asked a well-placed Democratic congressional aide. "We protected our programs." Where once Democrats bristled with liberal certainty, austerity has reduced their budgetary agenda to preserving the remnants of the welfare state.

Most of the likely conflict between Bush and Congress stems from both sides' periodically needing to prove their mettle to constituency groups. A prime illustration is Bush's all-but-certain veto this week of congressional legislation raising the minimum wage to $4.55 an hour over three years. There is no issue of high principle here, since the President supports lifting the minimum wage from the current $3.35 to $4.25 and congressional Democrats grudgingly accepted a subminimum training wage for new workers. Rather, Bush is trying to win points from the business community with his hard-line stance, while the Democrats lack the votes to override a veto.

It is tempting to stick the label of coalition government on this inchoate working arrangement between the President and Congress. But such a moniker exaggerates the willingness of either side to make the hard choices needed to actually govern. Last week's timorous budget pact suggests that America is being ruled by a caretaker regime, with few signs that the nation can long afford such a passive form of government.

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington