The House Ag Committee suffered a serious set-back when cotton
and rice interests voted against their Chairman, against the Speaker of the
House, and against just about everyone except their
politically active ($) constituents. The failure of
the House ag committee to overcome the big money spent by cotton and
rice, sugar and peanut lobbyists will have a major, long-term adverse
impact on the political clout and stature of the ag committee. Budget
committee chairman Kasich was hoping the ag committee would face up to
its responsibilties, but having failed to do so, Kasich and colleagues
will not hestitate to do it for them, and will probably extract a
"service charge" in the form of a few billion more in cuts. The ag
committee will not be given much sympathy. If they put up a fight,
Gingrich will act on his earlier threat -- and open up the farm policy
section of reconciliation to a full and free debate and votes on sugar,
peanuts, payment limitations, environmental issues, etc. The ag
committee would probably loose ground on every issue that gets openly
debated on the floor, and they know it.
So where is the process headed? In the Senate the big fight is
over. There may be some effort to more aggressively reform the sugar and
panut programs, but such a parochial, special interest provision will get
worked out behind the scenes and adopted after only a few minutes of
debate. The Senate has, afterall only 2 days for the WHOLE
reconciliation bill -- which will include all 13 appropriation bills, all
substantive legislation, welfare reform, the Medicare/Medicaid changes, etc.
The end result in the Senate will be close to the bill passed by
committee. If the House does not act, the conference will be pretty
straightforward.
In the House trouble lies ahead. Before they recessed last week,
the Repubs suffered two embarrassing defeats on major appropriation bills.
Nothing is going as smoothly as things must to get done on time; the list
of promises made but slipping off the agenda is getting longer, the list
of promises delivered is still short. And if the Congress fails to pass
the appropriations bills and reconciliation on a timely basis, Congress
will get the blame when the gov't shuts down Nov. 12th. At this point the
Admin. has little reason to participate to any signficant degree; the
votes and debates are controlled by the Repubs., the policy disputes of
note and importance are all unfolding with largely Republican players in
the lead roles. The President is sitting back, enjoying the debate,
raising tons of money for his re-election campaign, and waiting for the
Congress to reach closure, at which point he will get back into the
game. Plus, the Pres. is consolidating an impressive list of foreign
policy victories which could ironically turn his greatest weakness in
1994 into his greatest strength in the campiagn in 1996. Look at Dole's
cheap shot yesterday when he criticized the Pres. comments on Bosnia.
Clinton had given a speech stating that the U.S. must continue to lead
for progress to be made in Bosnia and elsewhere; on the floor of the
Senate, Dole responded. The Washington Post today summarized his
comments --
"And he (Dole) rejected the isolationist tag in caustic
terms: "I certainly agree with him on the need for American
leadership...It's been lacking for 30 months."
This is the short of cheap shot that has undermined "Dole the
stateman" in the past. There is a legitimate debate to be had, and
underway, but most people will find Dole's comments over the line.
This Congress, and Washington policy-making these days is a study
in contrasts. The reason and ease that characterized passage of the first
continuing resolution was notable; the attempt to craft and pass a second
could be, probably will be very different. On some issues the Repubs. are
moving toward the center and bringing the radical Christian-right
reformers back to earth, while in other areas other members are going off
on other divisive, and what most people expect, fruitless missions.
I think the process is going to get much messier and take more
time to sort out than there will be available. I think Nov. 11 will come
and go without a budget, and with no continuing resolution, and the
tensions following the progressive shut-down of gov't will be used by both
Clinton and Gingrich to get their respective troops in line sufficiently
to complete the people's business -- by about December 15ish. When the
dust settles and people actually read what is in the bill, many will be
shocked (including those members who voted for it; staffs who put it
together; people in the agencies supposedly tracking developments). Most of
next year's session will be devoted to cleaning up, and
undoing things that were slipped into the reconciliation package when Newt
wasn't looking. Also everyone should remember that most of the cuts are
back-end loaded; with each passing budget cycle, the cuts needed get
bigger and the pie from which the slices must be taken get smaller. The
end result is the process gets harder and harder each year and the real
impact on people's lives and the ability of gov't to do the people's
business will shrink.