QUESTION: When is a balanced budget "reckless" and "irresponsible," and when does it become "fiscally responsible"?
ANSWER: If you are senior White House adviser Rahm Emanuel, a man talented at turning pirouettes, a balanced budget can be all of these things in the space of a week.
Emanuel appeared on Meet the Press on Dec. 28, not long after House speaker Newt Gingrich had urged the president to submit a balanced budget. No chance of that, sneered Emanuel. The White House is "not going to do anything reckless or anything irresponsible." On Jan. 5, however, Bill Clinton said that he would submit a balanced budget this year, though he made no mention that his aides had been zinging Gingrich for urging this course. Without missing a beat, Emanuel spun on his toes and told the New York Times that Clinton's balanced budget showed "Washington can in fact be fiscally responsible."
Clinton economic aide Gene Sperling also executed a very smart backward march on the issue. When Gingrich floated the idea, Sperling sanctimoniously intoned: "The best way for us to reach a balanced budget sooner than expected is to maintain the fiscal discipline of the last five years, not to spend money we don't have yet." Then along came Clinton's "balanced" budget, which includes $ 21 billion in new child-care spending and depends on revenues from the tobacco settlement that Congress hasn't even taken up, much less approved. Not to worry, Sperling said, "You'll see surpluses as far as the eye can see. "
Clearly, an incapacity for embarrassment takes you far in the Clinton administration -- all the way to the top, even.