As a political document, President Clinton's $1.6 trillion budget for fiscal 1996 is a blatant attempt at putting the monkey of real deficit reduction on the backs of Republicans. As an economic document it is a disgrace, the worst blueprint for the management of government finances since Ronald Reagan left office. It commits the nation to $200 million increases in the national debt each year for as far as the eye can see.
Mr. Clinton's willingness to leave the initiative to the GOP-controlled Congress so he can counterattack for political gain is evident throughout. Most glaring is his unwillingness to take responsibility for cracking down on middle-class entitlements, those spending programs on automatic pilot that are climbing so fast they are bankrupting the country and threatening national security.
Social Security, Medicare and farm subsidies lead the list. If properly means-tested and controlled, they would yield savings that actually could put the government on a prudent course toward balancing the budget in an average-year context. But legislators in both parties have blanched repeatedly at the thought of enraging powerful interest groups, particularly the affluent elderly.
What is needed, desperately, is courage rather than maneuver. Since this is not to be in the third Clinton budget, the burden does indeed fall to an extraordinary degree on the Republican Congress.
Speaker Newt Gingrich and his lieutenants in economic policy have vowed to rein-in entitlement programs as the essential step in getting to a balanced budget. But there is reason to question whether their targets are middle-class programs rather than entitlements for the poor and disadvantaged. There is even more question whether they can keep the GOP rank-and-file in line as lawmakers are asked to vote on issues that could be poison in the 1996 elections.
Just after Mr. Clinton took office two years ago, as he presented a gutsy first budget that led to $500 billion worth of reductions in projected deficit costs, he said nations, like individuals, have to decide how to conduct themselves -- how they wish to be judged by contemporaries and posterity.
History is not likely to judge kindly this latest chapter in his presidency. He has made himself hostage to his political foes -- a hostage to those he has challenged to do what he has dodged.
If the Republicans succeed in slashing middle-class entitlements -- a long-shot prospect at best -- they will get history's accolades, and deservedly so. Many of the GOP freshmen come from rural districts that treasure farm subsidies. Others represent merchants with a liking for the Small Business Administration. Every one has elderly constituents drawing Medicare and Social Security benefits without reference to their private means.
To change this culture -- to curtail federal benefits (and tax cuts) for the middle class -- will require virtues seldom seen in Washington and wholly absent from the third Clinton budget.