CLOSING THE DEAL
November 19, 1999

Seven weeks after the start of the fiscal year, Congress passed a final budget agreement tonight. Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot analyze the deal and how it was reached.

Nov. 19, 1999: An Online NewsHour Update on the Senate budget vote. Nov. 18, 1999: The House passes a 2000 spending package. Oct. 1, 1999: Congress welcomes the new fiscal year, but with many old problems. Sept. 23, 1999: Two Congressmen on the president's veto of the Republican budget. June 28, 1999: The White House budget director discusses the budget surplus. March 22, 1999: The Senate Budget Committee approves the Republican budget plan. March 9, 1999: From budget deficit to surplus. Feb. 16, 1999: Republicans announce a major tax cut proposal. Feb. 1, 1999: Details of the president's fiscal year 2000 budget proposal. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the budget.     The White House The U.S. Senate	JIM LEHRER: Some additional analysis now from syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot.
	Victory for all?
	Everybody's claiming victory on this thing, Mark. Is that, can that be real? MARK SHIELDS: Well, it's remarkable, Jim, when you think about it. It's probably a tribute to the times of peace and prosperity in which we live. Ordinarily they attack, they denigrate, they demean. I had a meeting with Speaker Hastert this morning and then was over at the White House with Jack Lew, the budget director, this afternoon. And both of them just thrilled, claiming victory, emphasizing education, increased spending in education. It's really sort of an era of good feeling, at least temporarily, on Capitol Hill. JIM LEHRER: What happened, Paul? PAUL GIGOT: Surplus papers over a lot of problems, and an awful lot of disagreements and there's an awful lot of money to spend for everybody. I mean, one thing this was not was a victory for fiscal conservatism which is what the vice president and president say it was. Spending is going up 5 percent, roughly the double the inflation rate from last year. And, so, the victors are those who wanted to spend more money, and that includes the President and an awful lot of Republicans, particularly Ted Stevens and Arlen Specter on the Senate side. JIM LEHRER: But what about inclusion in this of an across-the-board cut in federal [spending]? They wanted 1 percent and they ended up getting .38 percent And both sides think that's wonderful. PAUL GIGOT: Yeah, well, what happened was that was a last ditch attempt by the Republicans to make up for spending they'd done earlier in the year. They said wait a minute, we're going to end up cutting into the Social Security surplus which we had drawn a line in the sand on. So we needed to do that to be able to get within those budget constraints. The president, understanding that that Social Security issue has become a pretty good weapon for both sides, was willing to agree with that, so they didn't cut into very much of that surplus. That's the biggest change that's happened here, frankly, is the change in the status of the Social Security fund. It's become almost a second deficit. Neither side really wants to touch it. And the White House uses it to stop Republicans from cutting taxes. Republicans turn around and say, Mr. president, we can't spend too much money so they stop more spending.
	A smoke-and-mirrors budget?
	MARK SHIELDS: One of the big losers was not smoke and mirrors budgeting, though. I mean, you heard David Obey in Kwame Holman's piece about taking emergency spending. Emergency spending is the kind that's usually floods, natural disasters or whatever, and that hasn't been anticipated. Now to meet these budget demands, the budget caps, they've taken... JIM LEHRER: That's the -- the only way they can go over the cap, they have to declare it an emergency. MARK SHIELDS: Emergency. We start with Head Start, which has been on the books since 1965. Then we add to it home heating oil, which has been there for 22 years, home heating oil assistance. But my favorite is, Jim, on September 30, 2000, the last day of the fiscal year, which is pay day for civilian and military federal employees, we're going to take $3.5 billion, and we're not going to pay them. We're going to pay them instead on the 3rd of October, Monday 2000. Why? Because it's a new fiscal year. Now, I mean, how many times can you do that? I mean you can't roll that over. But it's a paper saving of $3.5 billion. So there was some real smoke and mirrors. The other thing that was fascinating truly is that three years ago there was a consensus in this town, I think Paul would agree with, the Republicans had one solution for the education problem in the country. It was Bill Bennett, Lamar Alexander, former cabinet officers, every presidential candidate, and that was to abolish the Department of Education. We have seen education spending in this country since the Republicans took over the Congress go up by 46 percent to the Department of Education budget. Instead of abolishing it, they've enhanced it and embellished it. JIM LEHRER: Why have they done that? PAUL GIGOT: Because they want to get on the popular side of the issue. What's happened with prosperity is that a lot of the old issues have come off the table. Foreign policy and national security, taxes isn't as cutting. I still think it's more cutting than Mark does, but it's not as powerful as it used to be. Education, Social Security, have come to the fore. And Republicans look at that and say, geez, we better have something to say about it. JIM LEHRER: Because they can't make the issue -- they can't say, we haven't got the money. PAUL GIGOT: Well, they can argue. Democrats used to say look. You want to cut, cut, cut. Republicans say we don't want to -- we want to at least ante up to be able to deflect that so we can get to the issues of choice and accountability on education which puts the Democrats on the defensive because of their problems and loyalty to the unions.
	A relatively bloodless fight
	JIM LEHRER: What about the point that Paul made a moment ago, Mark, that this era of good feeling as you said -- do you agree with him and is it solely because there is a surplus? I mean, we've done this on our program ourselves. We have referred to this as the budget fight, the budget battle. This was really a bloodless fight, was it not? MARK SHIELDS: It was. I mean I think there's a change in the feeling on Capitol Hill. I mean there's no question. This session began in bitterness and ugliness and recrimination and impeachment of the president and the vote on it and all the rest. But I think Speaker Hastert deserves some credit. He is not Newt Gingrich. If Bill Bradley is benefiting from the fact that he is not Bill Clinton, Denny Hastert, the Speaker, is benefiting from the fact that he is not Newt Gingrich. And what was called a pool of meanness on Capitol Hill has been drying up, and he is -- he does deserve some credit. Now, he's leading the Republicans out of town at just the right time because the agenda that is left undone includes every agenda item put there by the Democrats, which are popular, whether it's covering prescription drugs for seniors, whether it's minimum wage increase. How do you, Jim, as a member of Congress vote for a pay raise for yourself of $4600 and not vote for an increase in the minimum wage? JIM LEHRER: But there's also this thing that all the polls were showing and Bradley and McCain apparently have benefited from this, Paul, that the public is sick of the bickering. They're just totally sick of it; they don't care whether they agree with you or disagree, just shut up about it. Is that also reflected in this? PAUL GIGOT: There is an element out there. Bradley, and McCain and even Bush to some extent in his campaign is playing off that, that they don't like that arguing back and forth and since 1994, let's face it, we've had a real fight in this town about philosophy. And to some extent with Newt Gingrich gone and the Republicans in retreat, philosophically, on Capitol Hill, let's be honest about that. I mean, there is not a lot of self-confidence about taking on a lot of issues with Republicans. A lot of the energy ideologically has shifted away from the conservative side out of this city to the governors. So we're fighting between the 48-yard lines in many respects now. And that's taken some of the nastiness out of the debate.