SHIELDS & GIGOT MAY 23, 1997 TRANSCRIPT

---

In this week's Political Wrap our pundits discuss wrangling over the budget deal and the political lessons learned from the case of Air Force Lt. Kelly Flinn.

---

A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: May 2, 1997: The NewsHour reports on the budget deal Congress has made with the President. May 22, 1997: Air Force Lt. Kelly Flinn accepts a general discharge instead of facing a court martial. For more segments with Shields and Gigot, browse the Shields and Gigot Index Page.

JIM LEHRER: Our regular political analysis by Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Mark, the balanced budget agreement made it through the House and the Senate. Why did it stick?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Just barely. Well, I think it stuck, Jim. It was a test of leadership. I mean, this was not the final vote, and it's a vote that you can get people to cast.

JIM LEHRER: Because it's a plan.

MARK SHIELDS: It's a plan. It's a plan. We're not actually saying we're going to put the corner over here, or this is where the shelves are going to be. We can all kind of agree in general, but it was a tough fight in both Houses by two votes.

JIM LEHRER: Two votes. Explain that. On a couple of amendments it would have derailed it.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: But the final vote on passage was overwhelming.

MARK SHIELDS: Was big, was very big, but on expanding the American infrastructure, repairing, rebuilding, refurbishing the American infrastructure.

JIM LEHRER: Roads and bridges.

MARK SHIELDS: Roads and bridges, and anybody knows one of the few things self-made in America on the roads are the potholes, and that was a move by the Public Works Committee--what historically been the Public Works Committee in both Houses--and they came within two votes of carrying it against the leadership of the party, against the White House, but they failed, and of course the other fight--big fight--was over whether we should increase the taxes on cigarettes. That was Sen. Hatch of Utah, a conservative, and Sen. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a liberal--to do--in order to finance health insurance coverage for children without it in working poor families.

JIM LEHRER: And many members of Congress said--used that example--the last example Mark just gave, Paul, that "in the real world I would have voted for that." "The reason I didn't," was because I had made a promise that I would vote for the deal. How did--how did they enforce that? They enforced it both on Republicans and on Democrats.

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Well, one of the arguments they made, which was a very good one, is there's $15 billion already in extra spending for Medicaid in the name of children, so it's not as if nothing gets in those. I mean, there's an awful lot there already. The Hatch-Kennedy bill would have added another $20 billion, but I think how they do it is they basically say a deal's a deal, and if we're going to abide by this, we're going to have to do a deal. And that's what the President did. Trent Lott said if Hatch-Kennedy passes, it's over; I'm pulling the bill.

JIM LEHRER: He said that on the floor of the Senate.

PAUL GIGOT: That's right. He called Erskine Bowles--Erskine Bowles got the president--

JIM LEHRER: White House chief of staff.

PAUL GIGOT: That's right--and the president on-line, and they said, look, it's going to collapse, and the President basically gave marching orders to the Vice President, who hinted earlier he was going to go and vote the other way.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah.

PAUL GIGOT: And said on the floor if there was a tie. So he pulled him back and--and in fact helped pass the bill.

JIM LEHRER: That was a strange scene in which we were in on the program the other night--

PAUL GIGOT: Sure was.

JIM LEHRER: --where the Republican leader of the Senate was looking over to the other side, talking to Ted Kennedy, one of the leading Democrats, saying, I just talked to your Democratic President--

MARK SHIELDS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: And he said, back off guy. That's essentially what he said.

PAUL GIGOT: Yeah. I think it shows, Jim, how there really is so little leadership in this Congress. Neither party is very secure in its own members that they can get their members to follow. Anybody with a faction and an idea can run off and offer an amendment and might succeed. I mean, I can't tell you how mad Trent Lott is at Orrin Hatch for joining up with--with Ted Kennedy. I mean, he's furious because it was almost a horribly embarrassing event this week, how that passed.

JIM LEHRER: Now, there was one exception to all of this and only one leader of the Congress said, no way, and that was Dick Gephardt, the House Minority Leader. What's going on there?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think first of all--I think what--you know, we see a lot of speculation about the year 2000.

JIM LEHRER: He might run for President.

MARK SHIELDS: I think it has--he ran in 1988 and won three primaries, including the Iowa caucuses, and didn't run in ‘92 and obviously, like everybody else who didn't run in ‘92, rues the day that they made that decision. I think this is more about 1998, and I'll tell you for the following reason, Jim: What Bill Clinton is doing with this budget agreement, which in my judgment is not only bad policy, it's bad politics, it's bad politics for his own party; it's bad politics because the Democrats in 1993 backed the President in his economic recovery program.

Without a single Republican vote, with the predictions of Speaker Gingrich and everybody else, it was going to double the deficit; it was going to drive people out of work, increase unemployment, four years later the economic recovery plan of Bill Clinton is spectacular. I mean, we have the lowest inflation in interest rates--and unemployment in 30 years. We have the lowest unemployment in 24 years. The deficit's gone down five years in a row--12.1 million new jobs. Nine out of ten of all the jobs created in the G-7 principal industrial countries since Bill Clinton's economic package took over have been created in the United States of America, and so what you do, now, Democrats are for it, every Republican voted against it; what Bill Clinton is going to say, okay, no, Trent, come on in here, you can be co-captains of this economic recovery. And Dick Gephardt is worried about 1998, what are Democrats going to run on?

They're the ones who took the heat, took the risks, stood up, and he makes the argument, I think, that (a) it's illusory that we're going to balance the budget with it, and (b) it is regressive. 1 percent--the richest 1 percent of Americans making $645,000 a year get 2/3 of the tax cuts under the capital gains supported by Trent Lott, so that's why he did it. I think he did it for real reasons. I think they had less to do with political than they do with Dick Gephardt's history.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think?

PAUL GIGOT: The joke among conservatives this week is that at least one member of Congress stood up and opposed this budget on principle, unfortunately, was Dick Gephardt. They wished a lot more Republicans would have stood up to it. It's about 1998, which happens to be a companion to the year 2000 because if Dick Gephardt wins seats in 1998 for the Democrats--

JIM LEHRER: On this issue.

PAUL GIGOT: On this issue. And he needs issues to do it. And this is in many ways for the Republicans an incumbent protection budget. They feel that it removes a lot of the wedge issues, the Medicare stuff, and the, you know, cutting this or that, and the Democrats who are on the outs, they need issues to cut to get in, so that's what Dick Gephardt is thinking, but if he gains seats in 1998, particularly if he would become Speaker of the House, he could resign his speakership and say, look, I delivered you back, and then make a real challenge to the Democratic--within the Democratic Party, I think, to Vice President Gore in the year 2000.

JIM LEHRER: Well, let's move on to another issue, and one that Elizabeth was talking with our regional comments about, real quick, and that's the politics of the many members of the Congress and Pat McGuigan mentioned Trent Lott got involved criticizing the Air Force, some liberal Democrats, Tom Harkin did the same. What's that all about?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think among Democrats this has been a theme for a long time, which is to basically represent the women in the services and beat up on the military in some ways for the way they're handling it. What is puzzling to me is why Trent Lott would decide he suddenly wants to sound like Pat Schroeder, the former Democrat of Colorado, who was a leader of the feminist Democrats on these subjects. I mean, the Republicans who traditionally sounded the themes of order an discipline within the services and backed the military, have been--Trent Lott has befuddled an awful lot of his colleagues on this because--the only justification they can think of is maybe he thought that this would somehow close the gender gap; this would somehow appeal to--to women voters. And I don't know--it doesn't make any sense to me, but that's the only explanation I can think of.

JIM LEHRER: How do you read it, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I take issue with Paul's analysis in the first place. First of all, Democrats on Capitol Hill--Tom Daschle, David Bonior, Dick Gephardt, Wendall Ford, leadership of the Democratic Party, all served in the military; Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, none of them. I mean, so one--one party is tough on the military, the other party is against the military.

PAUL GIGOT: --not saying--

MARK SHIELDS: I think they're questioning a lot of things there. And I just want to get the record straight. Okay. Ted Kennedy served in the military too; there's a whole bunch of them. And including both Kerrys. But the reality here, Jim, in my judgment, is the Air Force wanted to keep her. I mean, she was a prize, Kelly Flinn. She was the first B-52 bomber pilot. I mean, she was really almost a poster boy--poster girl for the Air Force. And she really left them no alternative; not because of the adultery, because of the lying and disobeying the order.

JIM LEHRER: What about the propriety of the--of Senators speaking out the way they did?

MARK SHIELDS: I think it made no sense at all.

JIM LEHRER: Whether they were Republicans or Democrats?

MARK SHIELDS: I really don't. I really don't think it made any sense. I mean, if somebody was being railroaded, you know, the violation of civil liberties and civil rights, fine, but I mean I don't think--I don't think it contributed to the dialogue or the decision.

JIM LEHRER: But do you think--you think the decision would have gone the other way if the Senators had not intervened?

PAUL GIGOT: I think it's possible. It's very possible that the court martial might have gone ahead. That is possible. And this follows a pattern, Jim, that's been--it went on with Tailhook, which a lot of bad behavior went on, but a lot of pressure and some very good naval careers were ruined because politicians said we think we can make some hay here by picking on the military command in response to the pressure created by events like this.

MARK SHIELDS: Let it be pointed that the Democratic--the Secretary of the Air Force, a woman and a Democratic administration didn't follow the advice of Trent Lott.

PAUL GIGOT: Absolutely correct.

MARK SHIELDS: She, in fact, didn't give an honorable discharge; she gave a general discharge under honorable conditions, which probably was the wisest decision I think in the final analysis available.

JIM LEHRER: All right. We have to leave it there. Thank you.

REGIONS TOPICS RECENT PROGRAMS ABOUT US FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS / FEEDS:

Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station.
PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.