S&L Mess: The End Is Near. At Last. Maybe.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS NOT REALLY BEEN CLOSING failed savings and loans, selling their assets and paying off their depositors forever. It just seems that way to many members of Congress who voted $50 billion for that job in April 1989 and since then have had to pony up more and more. Now the Clinton Administration is asking for an additional $45 billion, making a total of about $200 billion, and swears that will be the last. The figure is $11 billion higher than the White House calculated last month; Clinton aides insist that the increase reflects only their determination to make sure they do not have to go back to Congress ever again (though the Congressional Budget Office fears they might still be $5 billion short). Congress can blame itself for some extra cost. In 1992 it refused to put up any more money, so the federal cleanup agency for almost a year has been unable to sell off the assets of 83 failed S&Ls it has taken over. It can only absorb losses that mount every day that Congress dawdles.