THE FRESHMEN GO NATIVE

By Karen Tumulty/Washington

FOR BOB DOLE AND BILL CLINTON, THERE is political virtue in not signing a budget deal any time soon. Dole can drag a 1,754-page document along the campaign trail and call it the balanced budget that Clinton would not sign. And with a veto, Clinton can cast himself as the statesman who saved old folks and children from Republican punishment. But for the 73 G.O.P. House freshmen who stormed the Capitol with promises never to compromise--well, compromise is beginning to feel virtuous.

The newcomers began last week vowing to hold fast to their demands for abolishing the Commerce Department and choking off lobbying by private groups and companies that receive federal grants. But when the chance came to make their stand, they politely obeyed their elders' wishes for those provisions to be stripped from bills needed to keep the government operating. Class president Roger Wicker, sounding extremely docile for a radical, explained, "We're going to put a bill on the President's desk to avert a government shutdown. That's paramount."

The bill will indeed get to Clinton's desk, and he will veto it--a test of wills by both sides and the first of several partisan skirmishes leading to a larger showdown later this year over the G.O.P.'s economic agenda. But this week, when nonessential parts of the government could close, briefly inconveniencing tourists at monuments and campers at national parks, the House G.O.P. freshmen have made sure that their share of the flak will be no greater than anyone else's.

In ways big and small, the onetime absolutists are giving ground to the sordid realities of getting re-elected and to a larger realization that the incomplete victory of nudging the government in a new direction is better than the total defeat of bringing it down. "They know you can't be rigid on little things if you want to achieve big things,'' says House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "They came here to balance the budget, and they came here to change Washington. The details, I think, they've been remarkably mature about."

Perhaps the details in other people's districts. Republican Mark Neumann came to Washington unstinting in his determination to attack wasteful spending. No item was too sacred or too small to escape his cross hairs, not even an international fund for endangered animals dear to Gingrich. But when Neumann came across a way to bring federal money to his southeastern corner of Wisconsin, the crusading reformer suddenly became a deft Washington insider. In a closed session of his Appropriations subcommittee, Neumann quietly made sure that this year's defense-spending bill barred any firm using foreign parts from bidding on generators for certain Navy submarines. While that provision sounds patriotic enough, it gave one of his district's largest employers, Coltec Industries, the edge over lower-priced competitors. It also angered the Navy, which said the new restriction would result in less effective and more expensive subs.

Neumann is not the only one in his class to lose his fiscal purity. Such budget hawks as Georgia's Saxby Chambliss, Washington's George Nethercutt and Florida's Mark Foley have fought a fierce rear-guard effort for their districts' farm subsidies. Jim Bunn and Wes Cooley of Oregon refused to go along with budget-balancing legislation until Gingrich restored $155 million for their state's Medicaid plan; Ed Bryant's vote cost even more--$182 million for Tennessee's program. And in a particularly striking display of tunnel vision, Jerry Weller of Illinois tied up the House Banking Committee for four hours arguing that the major housing bill should concentrate new low-income units east of Interstate 57 in Cook County, where they would be out of his district.

The pressure to pursue parochial interests will only get worse as the freshmen head into their first re-election campaigns. Already they are proving to be especially quick studies at Fund Raising 101. Their proctor, campaign chairman Bill Paxon, brags that the typical freshman squeezed $123,000 out of political donors in his or her first six months in office, well above the $110,000 average raised by all Republicans. Half of it came from political-action committees, the very groups that many freshmen say they want to ban. The overachieving freshmen are scouting out fresh money sources as well. While Dole bashes the entertainment industry for its moral failings, pop-star-turned-politician Sonny Bono is heading a new congressional task force charged with opening a dialogue with the Hollywood moguls and, presumably, their traditionally Democratic wallets.

Utah Republican freshman Enid Waldholtz, meanwhile, is embroiled in a scandal over tens of thousands of dollars in bounced checks from the Congressional Credit Union and from banks in Salt Lake City--an echo of the precise issue that contributed so heavily to the public sourness on Congress in 1992.

Yet there is one line the freshmen appear ready to hold. No other group in Congress has been so determined in the campaign to meet the G.O.P.'s seven-year target for balancing the budget, even when polls show their plan is rapidly falling out of favor. Many members see victory at hand, particularly now that Clinton has suggested the goal is achievable. "Is this the time we ought to be holding up the process?'' says Kansas freshman Sam Brownback.

To get that process moving, they know, the time has come to be flexible even on issues they once declared paramount. Early on, Indiana's David McIntosh was hell-bent on stopping the Federal Government from issuing any new regulations. With that cause lost for this year, he says, "It's important that we show we can get things done.'' The newcomers have also set aside their crusade to wipe out scores of federal endeavors like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and they have agreed to put off their drive to overhaul campaign-finance laws until next year. Some are even talking of caving on some of Clinton's most cherished (and politically popular) programs, such as national service and direct government involvement in issuing student loans. And the tax cut that eventually emerges is likely to include some of Clinton's priorities, including making college tuition deductible.

But the toughest battle ahead is reaching an agreement on the overall size of that tax cut. Not only are many freshmen insisting that it stay at $245 billion over seven years, but the most die-hard among them even want to make the $500-a-child tax credit apply to this year. But there too deal cutting is likely. "They have two highly competitive desires: to balance the budget and a tax cut," Gingrich says of the freshmen. "At some point, you've got to say, 'O.K., which has precedence?' And I think, in the end, balancing the budget does."

The freshmen are beginning to realize that recalcitrance carries a price. They know that with no economic plan in place in the second month of the fiscal year, each week lost means more cuts will be needed to meet the budget targets of fiscal 1996. And nothing is more important in proving their credibility to voters. A seven-year budget is, after all, merely a promise--a plan that can be rewritten with each new session of Congress or thrown out completely. "Really, what matters is this first year," says Indiana freshman Mark Souder. "That's what we have to run on." This is another way of saying that a first step is better than a stumble.

--With reporting by Nina Burleigh/Washington

With reporting by NINA BURLEIGH/WASHINGTON