Clinton Suffers His First Big Loss

FOR A WHILE IT SOUNDED LIKE A REVERSE AUCTION IN billions: 16, 13, 8, 6 . . . In reality, though, all the compromise figures bruited around were hollow. The 43 Republican Senators were adamant, and the Democrats did not have the votes to break their filibuster. After repeated failures they gave up and accepted a simple $4 billion extension of unemployment benefits -- a shrunken remnant of the President's $16 billion economic-stimulus package. It was Clinton's first significant loss in Congress, and it demonstrated that to get his programs passed, he must either win over some Republicans or raise enough...