The Week

PRESIDENT Clinton’s recent budget, like his campaign for re-election, is a supple deceit. The rhetoric is solidly Republican, the actions quintessential Clinton. Some modest targeted cuts in capital-gains taxes and reductions in Medicare spending offer a sop to the Republicans that they seem willing to grab—even though the overall budget is a warmed-over version of last year’s offer that the Republicans rejected, with spending increased to $1.7 trillion.

The President promises a balanced budget by 2002. Even if that goal could be achieved, it would be a hollow accomplishment unless it reined in the growth of spending permanently. But the budget doesn’t even pretend to do that. It will be in deficit after 2002, and the deficit will rise year after year to record peacetime levels unless much more is done about entitlements. Yet the President, his budget director, and Congress all know that the problem is long-term fiscal discipline—something the President has made no move toward. Indeed, the initiatives he proposes include a new entitlement that would worsen the problem.

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PRESIDENT Clinton’s recent budget, like his campaign for re-election, is a supple deceit. The rhetoric is solidly Republican, the actions quintessential Clinton. Some modest targeted cuts in capital-gains taxes and reductions in Medicare spending offer a sop to the Republicans that they seem willing to grab—even though the overall budget is a warmed-over version of last year’s offer that the Republicans rejected, with spending increased to $1.7 trillion.

The President promises a balanced budget by 2002. Even if that goal could be achieved, it would be a hollow accomplishment unless it reined in the growth of spending permanently. But the budget doesn’t even pretend to do that. It will be in deficit after 2002, and the deficit will rise year after year to record peacetime levels unless much more is done about entitlements. Yet the President, his budget director, and Congress all know that the problem is long-term fiscal discipline—something the President has made no move toward. Indeed, the initiatives he proposes include a new entitlement that would worsen the problem.