That may change in the next few weeks as the Clinton administration begins Act II. Three major initiatives loom. Al Gore’s reinventing-government plan–more sweeping, and money-saving, than anticipated-will be introduced this week, quickly followed by the official opening of the campaign to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and, finally, health-care reform. There will be other skirmishes, a speech at the United Nations in late September, votes on his crime and education bills-as well as the possibility of a more active role in the Middle East talks and, militarily, in Bosnia. But the president’s reputation, if not his political fate, will rest on his handling of the Big Three. “What Bill Clinton does this fall will determine whether or not he really is a New Democrat,” says Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council, the moderate group that was Clinton’s spawning grounds, but is now growing skeptical about his intentions.
It is possible, even if the fall season is choreographed brilliantly, that Clinton will be perceived as mushier than ever. “OK, we start off with reinventing government he’s a New Democrat,” says one worried aide. “But by the middle of the month, we’re introducing this enormous health plan-aha, he’s an Old Democrat. And then we have to go up against labor and the liberal wing of the party on NAFTA. Wait a minute-he’s a Republican? Helllp.” There was some talk last week of having the president deliver a speech “framing” the three initiatives, showing how they fit together in the context of Clinton’s most persistent campaign theme: preparing the nation to “compete and win” in the global economy. But when could he deliver it? “How many big speeches can you guys handle in a month?” asks a top aide. “He’s got the NAFTA speech, the U.N. speech and, of course, the prime-time, joint session of Congress speech about health care. . . "
Why not use the joint session speech-planned for Sept. 22-to define his larger purposes rather than just limit it to health care? “Oh, he’ll do some of that,” says the aide. “But I can’t imagine him telling Hillary that he’s not going to use that speech to introduce her program.” Right. There is a very definite sense of priorities here, even if the official party line is that all three initiatives are of equal importance. The priorities are clear from the president’s prospective public calendar: one week (this week) to launch reinventing government. One day (Sept. 14) to launch NAFTA. And then seven weeks of wall-to-wall, nonstop Healthomania. The health-care push will begin with a week of briefings before the Sept. 22 speech. “We’ll brief everything that moves,” says an aide. “We’ll have more briefs than Fruit of the Loom.” Afterward, both Clintons will barnstorm the country, appear on everything from “Larry King Live” to the Home Shopping Network, hold regional town meetings and submit to all manner of photo image-mongering. “By early November,” says a health-reform aide, “he’ll probably have to start focusing again on NAFTA.”
The worry is that NAFTA may be a zombie by then, murdered by Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader and a legion of crypto-populist radio-talk-show hosts. The treaty would be a heavy lift even if Clinton devoted all his time to it: the liberal wing of his party is in open rebellion against it. The stated fear is the loss of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, even though the statistical evidence of Perot’s “great sucking noise” is equivocal. The long-term prospect of enhanced trade between the countries, and mutual economic growth, seems bright. Senate passage of the agreement is likely, but the House will be difficult-especially now that David Bonior (whose home state of Michigan, according to the administration, ranks fourth in the nation in trade with Mexico, for an estimated net plus of 22,000 jobs) will be leading the anti-NAFTA campaign from his whip office. The White House will organize local lobbying campaigns to move wavering members of Congress, but the president himself will have to work the most important undecided vote: “He has to try to keep [neoprotectionist Majority Leader Richard] Gephardt neutral,” says an aide. “If Gephardt joins Bonior, we’re really in trouble.”
Government won’t be reinvented without the president’s full attention, either. In preparing his report, Gore made some concessions to political expediency-more than a few programs he wanted to kill were preserved to mollify potential opponents-but he managed to present a surprisingly radical plan that will fundamentally change the way the federal government does business, while saving more than $100 billion over five years (box). Left to its own devices, the Congress is likely to eviscerate Gore’s plan-death by the restoration of 800 cuts, Clinton will try to push for a single up or down vote on the full package, keeping ReGo (as it is unfortunately called) from the clutches of a voracious, unsavory collection of committee chairmen whose turf will be impinged upon if the government streamlines itself, The first ReGo battle-specific program cuts-is likely in October, as the president wanders about on his health-care mission (the broader, more significant proposals to change the way government does business probably will not be introduced until next year’s budget).
A loss on NAFTA or ReGo would be disastrous for the president, but the emotional heart of Bill Clinton’s Act II will be health care-and his health-care-reform package may be the most ambitious, and controversial, presidential initiative since the New Deal. “There’s a deep schizophrenia in the American public about this issue,” says Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster. “Most people are very satisfied with their own care, but they understand the system is a mess. They have growing reservations about what the president is preparing. In the absence of solid information, they are filling in the blanks with their fears rather than their hopes.”
Clinton’s plan has been controversial within the administration as well. The economic team has thought it too expensive; liberal cabinet members like Donna Shalala don’t want it financed by cutting Medicare and Medicaid. “As far as I can tell, it’s Bill, Hillary and [chief health-care wonk] Ira Magaziner against the entire cabinet and most of the staff,” says one close observer. That’s something of an exaggeration, although people do grumble about how hard it is to argue with the First Couple. Some fear that the Clintons’ didactic internal style will carry over into the public debate: “This is how it’s gonna be” as opposed to “This is the beginning of an important national discussion,” according to one aide. Then again, the president was criticized for the absence of passion and conviction during the budget fight. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that this time,” says an aide.
Magaziner has, over time, worn down much of the internal opposition with expertise and wishful thinking. He insists the proposed reform will pay for itself. “Magaziner is this administration’s Robert McNamara,” says an old Kennedy hand, referring to JFK’s secretary of defense, who talked his boss into Vietnam via the creative use of statistics. The president moved last week to meet some of the economic team’s objections, slimming down the benefits package by cutting back on some mental-health and dental coverage, but the program, as it is emerging, still appears to be a thick, suety quicksand of mandates and entitlements, promising every sort of coverage short of cosmetic surgery, without significant new taxes. The details are changing daily, but it appears that the strictest potential disciplines-from price controls to real market forces-have been massaged out of the contraption during endless seminars in the Roosevelt Room over the past six months, leaving a no-pain plan that future presidents may have to pay for.
The plan, when unfurled, will have to compete with at least four other proposals bubbling up in the Congress. A passionate, phenomenally boring debate will ensue. It will continue through the fall, through much of next year-when something, though perhaps not anything resembling Clinton’s initial proposal, will be passed. “This issue is so big and the president is so obsessed with it,” says one adviser, “that I’m afraid he’s going to be defined by it–and defined as an old-fashioned, big-spending liberal.”
That is one fear. Others close to the president worry that none of these initiatives will produce jobs (indeed, ReGo and health care promise to shrink the work force), and the economy will suffer. But the greatest fear, as the Clintons begin their most ambitious policy offensive, must be that this surge of activity will prove exhausting and, ultimately, purposeless-that, in the end, Americans will have greater concerns than their “health security” and will grow tired of a president who seems able to think and talk about little else.
Among Al Gore’s 800 recommendations to reinvent government:
The plan would eliminate 57 percent, or 160,000, of government middle managers over five years through attrition, early retirement, buyouts and layoffs. Savings: $10 billion-$12 billion a year.
A half ton-literally-of government manuals now regulate federal hiring and firing. Brief new rules would stress achievement over seniority. IRS streamlining could save $7 billion a year.
Wherever possible, government business operations would be sold. The FAA’s air-traffic controllers, for example, would become a corporation financed and managed by airports and airlines.
Cutting expenses like the honeybee subsidy, shuttering 1,215 Department of Agriculture field offices and shrinking agencies like HUD would save $5 billion a year.
Gore wants industry to police itself, backed up by government spot inspections. Using the market to enforce environmental goals, the EPA, which now regulates individual polluters. would set regional water-pollution limits. Companies within that region could buy and sell their “pollution quotas.”
