Last in A Dreary Line: Clinton's Budget Vow

RONALD REAGAN PLEDGED TO BALANCE THE BUDGET by 1984. Congress, in the first, 1985, version of the Gramm-Rudman Act, promised to wipe out the deficit by 1990. Bill Clinton in last year's campaign merely proposed to cut red ink in half in four years. But if his vow was more modest, it was not, apparently, any more realistic than -- well, George Bush's prediction three years ago of a balance by fiscal 1993. In fact, Bush's final budget reveals that during his Administration the deficit nearly doubled, rising to an expected $327.3 billion in fiscal 1993 -- the current year. Forecast for fiscal 1997: $305 billion, or $68 billion more than the White House estimated only five months ago -- and even that is based on a ludicrously optimistic assumption about what Congress will do. Chances that Clinton can fulfill his pledge: zero.

That should not have been a great surprise to the President-elect, since he had been hearing much the same from his aides -- who nonetheless howled that Bush had been concealing the dismaying truth. The new figures, however, are so bad as to call into question whether Clinton can cut the deficit at all, as he still insists he will. Doing so might require not just shelving his cherished middle-class tax cut but also enacting actual tax increases and brutal cuts in some spending programs. And those could work at cross-purposes to his program to "grow the economy" by increasing investment -- which entails new spending.