TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/020590/0205109.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.3 KB | 186 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 16

China Breach


Congress sets the tone for an election year with a bruising --
and losing -- challenge to the President's foreign policy. So
much for bipartisanship

By DAN GOODGAME -- Reported by Hays Gorey/Washington


    Fit and sassy after a nine-week recess in such sunny spots
as Bermuda and Hawaii, congressional Democrats got a
wet-blanket welcome when they returned to Washington last week.
The capital's skies spat and drizzled. The public-approval rate
of President George Bush had climbed to nearly 80%. And the
early victory the Democrats had planned against Bush over his
unpopular China policy proved a washout. In the process, both
Congress and the White House made it clear that the uneasy
partnership they attempted last year will give way to the
partisan bickering of an election year.

    The Democrats had chosen what they believed was a winning
issue: they were determined to override the President's veto
of a bill that would have allowed 40,000 Chinese students to
remain in the U.S. rather than face possible persecution in
their homeland in the wake of the June massacre of
pro-democracy demonstrators. Last November, after that
legislation passed both houses of Congress without dissent,
Bush blocked it. He argued that he could extend the students'
visas on his own authority but would not sign legislation that
could anger China's rulers.

    Early last week his advisers told Bush that his veto could
not be sustained in Congress. Adamant, Bush and his combative
chief of staff, John Sununu, insisted the White House must
prevail if Bush were to convert his passive public approval to
tangible political clout. In an interview with TIME on the eve
of the China vote, Bush urged that Congress not "just seek
confrontation in an election year." He warned, "I won't be any
pushover."

    He wasn't. Focusing on the Senate, Bush made the issue a
test of personal and party loyalty. He called Senators to a
White House breakfast and followed up with personal notes and
phone calls. He publicly promised that "no student will be
forced to leave the U.S. against his will." (One Chinese
student, however, sharply reminded a Senator that Bush broke
an earlier promise: "He promised no high-level contacts with
China" but within a month secretly dispatched National Security
Adviser Brent Scowcroft to Beijing.)

    Last week Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker
joined Bush's lobbying campaign by phone, while G.O.P. Chairman
Lee Atwater and Vice President Dan Quayle prowled for votes in
the corridors and cloakrooms of the Capitol. Even Richard Nixon
phoned wavering Senators to say that Sino-American relations
would suffer if Bush was defeated.

    As expected, the House crushed the veto, 390 to 25. But 37
Senate Republicans were more receptive to Bush's blandishments,
and the 62 votes to override fell four short of the required
two-thirds.

    At a news conference later, the President denied any
intention to "gloat" or "crow" yet could scarcely restrain
himself. Said he: "I do think [the victory is] going to be
helpful in reaching accommodation in the House and Senate on
some of our objectives." Added Mary Matalin, Republican Party
chief of staff: "It's just another case where people
underestimated the tenacity of George Bush. When he gets pushed
up against the wall on something that he knows and cares about,
he does whatever is necessary to win."

    And he will do more. Skirmishes will multiply as the few
efforts at bipartisan cooperation of the recent past recede
from Washington's memory. For one thing, the Democrats are
plainly frustrated. In a fit of complaisance early last year,
the White House and Democrats agreed to set aside differences
on policy toward Nicaragua, collaborated on a plan to bail out
the savings and loan industry and settled on the outlines of
the federal budget. But the budget accord unraveled, largely
over Bush's insistence on a capital-gains tax cut that would
mainly benefit taxpayers earning $200,000 or more a year. Senate
Majority Leader George Mitchell blocked that measure,
promising that he would make no more budget deals with the
White House and observing sourly that "for them, bipartisanship
is a one-way street."

    A senior Administration official concedes, "It is not
unreasonable for Democrats to feel that we define
bipartisanship as their doing what we want them to do. Being
cooperative did not get them much last year." This official
would prefer to trade favors and make deals -- to allow the
Democrats "to be the winners sometimes to get what we want."
But Sununu and others, adds the official, "have a real desire
to inflict pain for its own sake."

    In that respect, Sununu is a useful "bad cop" to Bush's
"good cop." The President emphasized to TIME that he will renew
his offer of cooperation with Congress this week in his first
State of the Union address. But he warned half-jokingly, as he
rolled his eyes in the direction of a smiling Sununu, "You've
got some [people] sitting around here that aren't quite as kind
and gentle." Never a patient sort, Sununu has grown exasperated
with Congress's failure to act on the Administration's agenda
and has persuaded Bush to depict the Democrats as a band of
tax-happy do-nothings.

    Bush may also be more willing than ever to veto legislation.
That power is essentially negative: it can stymie the
Democrats, but it can seldom accomplish anything positive.
Similarly, the Democrats, who lack a two-thirds majority in
either house, cannot override Bush's veto without Republican
support. Their strategy, according to one of their number, will
be to send the President legislation on popular issues that
bears a strong Democratic imprint, and dare him to veto it.
Among the most divisive of those upcoming issues:


    TAXES. New York's Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
wants to roll back Social Security taxes that have become
burdensome for most middle- and lower-income wage earners. Bush
opposes any cut in Social Security taxes as too expensive and
claims that it would threaten future retirement benefits. At
the same time, the President will continue to press for cuts
in capital-gains taxes.


    THE BUDGET. Bush has warned Congress against spending any
"peace dividend" from a reduced defense budget. He will propose
to cut only about $10 billion in defense for the next fiscal
year, and insists that those savings are needed to reduce the
budget deficit. When Congress demands deeper cuts, the
Administration will challenge members to cut in their own
districts by eliminating unneeded military bases.


    CLEAN AIR. Congress is intent on passing clean-air
legislation that is more stringent, more expensive and less
market oriented than the proposal Bush submitted last year.
Asked whether he can afford in an election year to veto any
clean-air bill, the President told TIME, "Yes, because I'll be
talking about jobs and a person's right to make a living [as
well as] my commitment to clean air."


    CHILD CARE. Republicans prefer a child-care program that
would work through tax incentives and grants to states.
Democrats favor creating a new federal bureaucracy and federal
regulations.


    CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM. If a bi-partisan House task force
does not submit a bill by early March, Oklahoma Democrat David
Boren will introduce his own in the Senate. Democrats generally
favor campaign-spending limits and use of public funds in
campaigns; Republicans oppose both.


    FOREIGN AID. Bush endorses the efforts of Senate Republican
leader Robert Dole to give the President and State Department
more flexibility in apportioning aid to the emerging
democracies of Eastern Europe and Latin America. Democrats,
along with many Republicans, defend the current system, under
which Congress earmarks the greatest aid to five recipients:
Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and the Philippines.


    This is a heavy legislative load, and with elections ahead
the temptations will be greater than usual to posture and
obstruct, to veto and delay. But if the current Washington
gridlock continues, the voters may eventually see to it that
incumbents of both parties get a much longer vacation than they
wanted.