WASHINGTON -- Six months ago, with high hopes and bold rhetoric, a panel of leading members of Congress and economic experts convened here, promising to take on one of the toughest problems facing the government -- the sharp growth of spending on guaranteed benefits such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Those programs, called entitlements, account for nearly half of government spending and are devouring an increasing portion of the federal budget. But last week, amid internal squabbling, commission members wrapped up their work with no agreement on exactly what needs to be done to avert a fiscal crisis that many say is inevitable.
"I'm a little disappointed we didn't get further down the road to specific proposals," said Republican Rep. Porter J. Goss of Florida, a member of the panel. "But I'm not surprised. Doing nothing means disaster, but doing the right thing is difficult."
The panel, formally known as the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, was chaired by Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. Mr. Kerrey, who sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1992, had attacked President Clinton for not doing enough to cut the budget deficit last year and demanded the kind of sensitive cuts in social spending that most politicians run from.
Political third rail
Earlier this year, it seemed that some politicians were finally ready to consider reducing entitlement spending, which, because of the enormous popularity of Social Security and Medicare in particular, has been called the third rail of American politics -- touch it and you die.
In 1992, voters responded eagerly to Ross Perot's message of fiscal restraint and the need to reduce the budget deficit. Younger members of Congress seemed more willing to face up to the politically unpalatable issue.
Now, though, the kind of real reform and sacrifice that commission members discussed last summer seems ever more remote. Incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia has promised not to consider cuts in Social Security, the largest entitlement program. Meanwhile, Mr. Clinton and congressional Republicans are offering rival plans to cut taxes.
What went wrong?
What went wrong? Why did the prospect of entitlement reform that was in the air last spring end in frustration last week?
Above all, members of the panel and their aides said in interviews, the commission was overwhelmed by political forces beyond its control: the midterm campaign in which Social Security turned out to be a divisive issue; the unexpected earthquake on Election Day that gave Republicans control of Congress; and the unwillingness of party leaders to further enrage voters.
In addition, unexpectedly close election races forced panel members to put aside the entitlement issue by October and focus on their campaigns back home. Then, shortly before Election Day, a memo from the White House budget director, Alice M. Rivlin, which discussed possible cuts in Social Security and other programs, was leaked to the news media.
Republicans pounced on the memo, charging that Democrats planned to cut Social Security. Immediately, the White House backed away. Mr. Clinton's chief of staff, Leon E. Panetta, said the president "has consistently rejected, and he continues to reject, any cuts in Social Security."
"The Rivlin memo poisoned the water," said an aide to a Republican member of the commission. "Both parties were now rejecting whatever choices we did make."
Legislators from both parties were boxed in. They had put themselves on the record as opposing reductions in entitlements. And it was now clear that the president was not going to come to their aid with his own plan to cut spending.
Election Day came, sweeping the Democrats out of power and sharply altering the political agenda. Republicans who had talked of bold cutbacks in the past were now in the majority -- a very different situation.
Instead of being in opposition, Republicans on the commission would soon have real power in Congress. Rep. Bill Archer found himself preparing to take over as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
"The confluence of these factors added to an already difficult climate," said the commission's chief of staff, Mark Weinberger. "Nobody expected the Rivlin memo, or that Congress would change by such a dramatic margin."
Commission members, Mr. Weinberger said, did not want to take a political risk and make recommendations that stood little chance of becoming law. The recommendations were now unlikely to go anywhere, and some legislators envisioned that their decisions might be used against them in future political campaigns.
"After the election, Republicans didn't want to talk about the issue," said the Republican staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Newt Gingrich told other Republicans to drop it. They want to solidify control and be the majority party for the next 40 years. They don't want to anger seniors and get kicked out in 1996."
"I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised," said Pete Peterson, a panel member and New York investment banker who has been warning for years of the threat posed by the budget deficit. "In our society, it's much more difficult to talk about solutions if there is pain required and the problem is in the future.
"The crisis is coming," Mr. Peterson added. "This is like a fiscal cancer. At the moment, the tumor isn't big enough to cause serious dysfunction, but it's metastasizing."
In the end, the commission could agree only on a letter to Mr. Clinton, laying out the problem and suggesting that budget planners assess the likely effects of spending and tax proposals over 30 years, rather than the usual five. Ironically, the week that was supposed to be devoted to entitlement reform and cutting the deficit was dominanted by rival plans for tax cuts, which could increase the deficit.
Commission and staff members denied that their work has been in vain.
'A major sea change'
"Before we started this commission, no one talked about the problem," Mr. Weinberger said. "Now, we've identified the problem, and the debate has shifted from whether there is a problem to how to fix it. That's a major sea change."
Mr. Goss, the Republican legislator, is also promising to keep the issue alive. "This hasn't ended," he said. "It's just completed its first step. We've made believers out of people."
Sandra W. Freedman, mayor of Tampa, Fla., and one of the few commission members from beyond the Capital Beltway, is not as optimistic.
"We're not a very disciplined nation, so we don't deal with the problem until the crisis comes along, and that's what's going to happen here," she said.
"Everybody's making promises," she said. " 'Don't touch this, Don't touch that.' People will make a lot of noise about this issue, but nothing really substantial is going to happen soon."