TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93TT1886> <title> June 14, 1993: Bentsen On The Burner </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 Jun. 14, 1993 The Pill That Changes Everything </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> THE CABINET, Page 30 Bentsen On The Burner </hdr> <body> His influence rides on winning the votes of his old Senate colleagues for Clinton's battered budget By GEORGE J. CHURCH--With reporting by Michael Duffy, Dan Goodgame and Adam Zagorin/Washington At early meetings, most of Bill Clinton's Cabinet members addressed one another as Chris or Les or Donna. But Lloyd Bentsen they called "Mr. Secretary." It was an appropriate gesture of respect for the Treasury chief's age--at 72, he is old enough to be the grandfather of some of Clinton's younger aides--and experience. Bentsen began attending insiders' meetings more than 40 years ago; as a young Congressman, he sat in on some "board of education" gatherings at which "Mr. Sam" Rayburn and House colleagues shaped legislative strategy over belts of bourbon. Clinton, however, has been less deferential to Bentsen's policy views. And so the Texan has been less of a prime mover on economic strategy than had been expected. For example, the stress on tax increases over spending reductions in the Administration's deficit-cutting program reflects Clinton's preferences far more than Bentsen's. So far, too, the compromises pushing that program through Congress have been concocted by Capitol Hill powers--currently Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who succeeded Bentsen as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee--dealing directly with Clinton. Now, though, the battle is shifting into the area where Bentsen is at his best: lining up votes. Just before a crucial House ballot late last month, the Secretary persuaded two Texas Congressmen to switch and support the budget--which then passed by three votes more than the minimum needed. From Moscow and Paris last week, where he had gone to confer with Boris Yeltsin and other top foreign leaders, Bentsen spent about 2 1/2 hours every day phoning White House officials, Moynihan and others to begin working out the details of a deal that might be acceptable to the Administration and the 11 Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee (the nine Republicans are all sure to vote no). The main elements of the deal include a reduction by a quarter to a third in the $70 billion the Administration's proposed energy tax is supposed to raise over the next five years. That amount would be made up by cuts in Medicare spending. Administration officials note that the American Association of Retired Persons mobilized little effective protest when the Administration proposed slashing $50 billion from Medicare and imposing a means test on some Social Security subsidies. Over the weekend, Bentsen cut short his trip and returned to Washington to help Clinton plot strategy. He admits to being pleased by the President's recent moves toward the center. "That appeals to my views," he told TIME on Saturday as he prepared to leave Europe. "Obviously there were times when I thought a different course should have been taken," he said of the President's original plan, which relies more on taxes than spending cuts to reduce the deficit. "Now, in the Senate, there will be some energy-tax reduction and spending cuts as well. I guess everyone knows I'm most hawkish on the spending-cut side." He argues that the elderly should not try to fight new cuts in Medicare and should instead wait to see the health-care plan scheduled to be unveiled in a few months. "I'd hope they would wait for that and share our concerns about the importance of passing this budget. Health-care reform is where they have their greatest stake." After 22 years in the Senate, Bentsen is well known to all the key players, and he won their respect by the way he ran the Finance Committee for the last six of those years. The committee is expected to delay a vote until the last possible minute--that is, June 18--and partly at Bentsen's urging. His reason: the longer the full Senate has to ponder the committee's product, the more time for foes to mobilize. Bentsen, further, is looking ahead to the House-Senate conference committee that will shape the final bill. There the Administration could try to forge a compromise putting both the BTU tax and the cuts in Medicare somewhere between the House and the Senate bills. Some White House officials, though, fear that this plan grows out of Bentsen's experience in the Finance Committee and might fail to take sufficient account of the clout of the A.A.R.P. in the House. "We're rolling all our cannons over to the Senate," said an official, "but the House can still rise up to hurt us in the conference committee." Had Clinton accepted Bentsen's advice, aides insist, the President could have avoided his most stinging defeat. The Treasury Secretary endorsed a compromise devised by Senate Democrats that would have trimmed down Clinton's $16.3 billion economic-stimulus program. But Clinton insisted on going for it all--and wound up with nothing. On the other hand, some Clinton aides blame Bentsen's compromising instincts for giving away too much too soon on the energy tax. Bentsen's theory was that by granting early concessions to oil and gas interests he could demand their support for Clinton's overall economic program. But he could not cut deals in secret, as he had on the Finance Committee; his concessions emboldened other interests to demand exemptions of their own, turning the tax into a hash. Sneers a White House official: "We wouldn't be having this trouble with the Senate if Lloyd Bentsen were alive." As that crack indicates, the generation gap (or two-generation gap) between the Treasury Secretary and the thirty-somethings around Clinton has not helped Bentsen's clout. His courtly manner goes over well on TV, where he has become a prime spokesman for the Administration. But it sets him apart from the Clintonoids, whom he has described as "the meetingest bunch I've ever seen. The huggingest bunch too." He has little patience with his young colleagues' penchant for turning one-hour meetings into all-night seminars, and when Clinton asked members of his team to share their innermost experiences at a Camp David meeting in February, Bentsen begged off and went to bed. Says another economic adviser: "Lloyd has reached a stage in his career where what he offers is experience and judgment. He doesn't do windows or homework." The touch of condescension in that remark is misplaced. Though Bentsen has learned to pace himself, he hardly lacks energy: he remains an avid tennis player. He is adaptable too. Though he is basically moderate to conservative, he campaigned comfortably as the running mate of the liberal Michael Dukakis, getting off the best-remembered crack of that doomed campaign--his remark to Dan Quayle: "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." If Bentsen can help steer the budget to victory, his star may yet rise. If not, he is likely to be eclipsed by upstarts with little patience for tradition. </body> </article> </text>