ON the evening of Thursday, October 15, congressional leaders announced they had a budget deal with the White House -- but the bill was hardly complete. By Monday, there was still only one copy available of the 4,000-page agreement, and it was arranged in stacks on the conference table of Speaker Gingrich's "Dinosaur Room." A handful of leadership and Appropriations staff reviewed the negotiators' handiwork, with pencils in hand to make last-minute changes. Even on the eve of the House floor vote, it wasn't too late to accommodate the White House.

When the $520-billion bill won the support of more Democrats than Republicans, Gingrich scolded its conservative critics. He explained that lawmakers "who have grown up and matured in this process understand we have to work together on big issues." But aside from the budget's high-visibility disappointments-no tax cuts, billions of dollars in new "emergency" spending -- the process Gingrich defended was sloppy and amateurish, virtually guaranteeing conservative surrender on all fronts.

Included in the omnibus package were eight appropriations bills that Congress had left unfinished. Four of them had never been subject to amendment or a separate vote in the Senate, shutting out almost all members of that chamber from the process. Meanwhile, before Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott got their chance to bargain away conservative priorities in eight days of discussions with White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, individual Appropriations subcommittees had already negotiated their respective bills with the Clinton team. These negotiations involved both Republican chairmen (Old Bulls) and ranking Democrats, all of whom were happy to fund the President's priorities while cutting conservative policy riders.

Take Title X, the federal family-planning program. It is a case study in how a handful of liberal members and staff have the final say on scores of important policy issues. Negotiating Title X's spending levels and restrictions was the responsibility of subcommittees led by Senator Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) and Congressman John Porter (R., Ill.), both big Title X boosters. Last spring, one of Porter's top aides, Robert Bradner, received an award from Planned Parenthood for "working behind the scenes" and "keeping the Title X program free of harmful restrictions and cuts."

Bradner probably deserves an award for this year's budget work too. The House had approved $203 million for Title X. Senator Specter got an increase to $215 million. The House had passed a provision mandating that parents of Title X's minor clients be notified about services provided. This was dropped. On the other hand, a federal adoption registry promoted by Senator Carl Levin (D., Mich.)-- never approved by either body and opposed by conservatives -- made its way into Sen. Specter's version of the bill. So much for the collective will of the House and Senate.

"It was a poisonous process," complains a veteran Senate staffer. Items would just be added or deleted with no accountability whatsoever. Senator Don Nickles (R., Okla.) and Congressman Henry Hyde (R., Ill.) wanted a prohibition on the use of controlled substances for assisted suicides, a priority for social-conservatives who hoped to get something from a bill full of sugar plums for the White House. The Administration insists that the provision never prompted a veto threat -- yet it was mysteriously rejected during negotiations. We may never know why.

Two weeks after the budget bill passed, a senior Senate budget staffer was still uncertain about the policy provisions contained in the bill. It was only at this late date that he realized the bill included $9 billion in "forward funding"-which means that the spending caps for the fiscal year after next have already been broken. During negotiations, the daily updates on the status of the bill -- highlighting about 100 disputed items -- were virtually useless, as settled issues were routinely re-opened.

The Speaker and Majority Leader reached an agreement with Bowles for $1.1 billion toward 100,000 new teachers under a specific funding formula. The next morning, Bowles was back insisting on another 100,000 and a different formula. He got both -- and plenty more, given how the Administration describes the new federal spending. The White House maintains that next year's funding is only the "down payment" on an agreement for a seven-year, $12-billion commitment to reduce classes to 18 students in early elementary school.

Education wasn't the only area where the White House won the day. The House had approved an important provision sponsored by Rep. Henry Bonilla (R., Tex.) which ordered a study of the efficacy and costs of major new Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations on ergonomics. Bonilla refused to drop the study in meetings with White House staff. But the Speaker mollified the Administration by having a letter sent to the Department of Labor "clarifying" that the mandated study will not affect the proposed regulations. The budgets for OSHA and the National Labor Relations Board, held constant by the House, were increased to meet the President's request. As a result, the Administration could claim a total victory for its labor bosses.

A veteran Senate aide explains the GOP negotiating posture: "There was a universal assumption that everyone knew to be true. The President gets whatever he demands, and everything he objects to is dropped." In fact, the President himself didn't have to insist on anything. The GOP leadership never demanded that the President be present during negotiations, freeing him up to blast Republicans daily for their intransigence, while the GOP meekly capitulated to White House staff.

According to one Republican staffer, senior GOP aides were dismayed at the spectacle of their leadership's "lowering themselves to the level of staff" -- especially a White House staff that has treated them so disdainfully. "Over the past two years," explains the staffer, "if meetings with our leadership and White House staff haven't been canceled at the last minute or postponed, members of Congress have been kept waiting." This is a calculated show of disrespect, and the White House -- with good reason -- expects congressional Republicans simply to accept it.

Were there Republican victories in the spending bill? The GOP leadership claims the 100,000 new teachers as one. Besides that they also cite as a concession wrung from the White House a prohibition on providing free needles to drug users. But an amused Clinton appointee at the Health and Human Services Department scoffs. After all, he points out, the White House, at the insistence of the Drug Czar's office, had already nixed Donna Shalala's proposal for a federally funded needle exchange months ago.

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL
Although just one copy of the bill was available in the Republican cloakroom on the eve of the Senate vote, twenty GOP senators (including, significantly, Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles) knew enough about it to vote against it. This, despite heavy lobbying by Trent Lott, who apparently wanted his members to know less rather than more. According to one Senate budget aide, "There was a conscious decision not to let members and staff see the bill in advance because we could have argued even more effectively against it."

And while Gingrich was labeling opponents of the deal the "perfectionist caucus," he was distributing buttons declaring "A Victory for America" to its supporters. The bill was a victory at least for that part of America residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Only after acceding to $21 billion of bogus "emergency" spending, IMF funding, and federal money for teachers -- and three days after announcing a deal -- did Trent Lott finally wrest from the White House a concession on one of his most cherished priorities: extending the Mississippi duck season by three days.