President To Host Budget Talks With Top Lawmakers

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Nov. 11) -- President Clinton and congressional leaders will meet face to face Tuesday for the first time since the election. The White House says the meeting is set for 2 p.m. ET at the White House.

Officials expect House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt to attend. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle is in China, and Sen. Wendell Ford is expected to take his place.

Administration officials say the President wants to meet with the members to spell out his two top priorities for the next session: balancing the federal budget and reforming campaign finance. They say Clinton then wants to hear priorities from the members on both sides of the aisle.

In one of his first post-election interviews, Clinton on Sunday said his top priority is to balance the federal budget while expanding educational opportunities, a goal he characterized as "easily achievable."

Clinton told ABC's David Brinkley, "If I could pass one thing, I think it would be a budget that does that." And he stressed that differences between his administration and congressional Republicans, which led to the end of budget talks last year, could be overcome outside election-year politics.

"We were so close when we adjourned our budget negotiations last year so Sen. Dole could pursue his campaign," the president said. "We were very, very close in dollar numbers, so I would think that it would be easily achievable, if we all work hard in good faith."

It could all happen within one year, the president contended, and he said he had no plans for any tax increases.

From a different Washington TV studio, Lott sounded less optimistic tones. On the key budgetary issue of Medicare spending, Lott said on NBC's "Meet The Press" that the president last year had "very much dealt with sleight-of-hand and demagoguery in addressing this question. He needs to wake up on this and be honest with the American people about the seriousness of the problem."

A recent study projects that, with Medicare's costs growing by some 10 percent annually, the program will be insolvent by 2001. In 1995, the Republican leadership proposed slowing the growth of Medicare by $270 billion over seven years, though they eventually lowered the figure to $168 billion. Throughout the campaign, Clinton and congressional Democrats, who proposed slowing Medicare's growth by $148 billion, harped on GOP Medicare proposals as excessive and a threat to senior citizens.

Lott, who some predict will replace House Speaker Newt Gingrich as the power center for congressional Republicans, also took issue with Clinton's suggestion that Medicare's problems ought to be addressed by a bipartisan commission.

"I don't like the idea of kicking the ball every time, punt the ball, saying 'Oh, let a commission do it.' We have a responsibility. We can do it ourselves."

Reviving issues opposed last year by the Clinton Administration, Lott said Republicans would push again for a balanced-budget amendment and a package of tax cuts, including capital gains tax reductions.

The president told Brinkley that Americans were "yearning" for Democrats and Republicans to work together. Lott also said the election's mandate was for cooperation, but that congressional Republicans are "not just going to be reactive. We're going to have an agenda."

President To Host Budget Talks With Top Lawmakers

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