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The money game, or more precisely the lack-of-money game, began its long and intricate course in earnest last week. There were direct signals, mixed signals, contradictory signals -- something for everybody. The central point, however, was unambiguous. A debate rages over the exact effect monumental federal deficits have on the nation's economic health and its role as a world leader. But the President left no doubt that he disdains those who claim that deficits do not matter. If asked, Bush would undoubtedly agree with the assessment of Alice Rivlin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office. "The budget deficit," she told the Wall Street Journal, "has become a defense issue, a foreign policy issue, a health-care issue, an education issue. Getting the budget deficit behind us has become a test of our ability to govern."
On his own, Bush despairs. "If it weren't for this deficit looming over everything else," he said, "I'd feel like a spring colt." The emphasis carried into the Inaugural. "A thousand points of light," Bush's call for increased volunteerism, can be interpreted as a deficit-constrained alternative to federally funded programs. Soothing symbols may be all that the less fortunate get from the Bush Administration because, as the President said, "we have a deficit to bring down . . . We have more will than wallet."
Previous Inaugural calls for bipartisanship were almost always exclusively pleas for a unified American front in foreign affairs. Bush's seemed aimed primarily at domestic fiscal policy. "We need compromise," he said. "We need harmony . . . The people await action. They did not send us here to bicker . . . Let us negotiate soon -- and hard. But in the end, let us produce." Here, if nowhere else, one heard an almost plaintive cry: Help me, Congress, help me escape from the box I've created.
But didn't the man who Ronald Reagan once said "is part of every decision . . . part of policymaking here" know the magnitude of the problem long ago? Bush wants the nation to believe he did not -- a claim reminiscent of his assertion that he was out of the loop when Iran-contra went awry. To TIME last week, the President professed surprise. "I've started going over the ((deficit)) numbers finally, and they're enormous," he said. "I've been going over the realities of the budget . . . There are constrained resources . . . We've got to be a little careful in terms of not saying what year which initiatives would be undertaken or accomplished."
Supporting this incredible confession, Bush's aides have described a period of "reality therapy" for the President. "Frankly," says one, "he didn't understand the deficit until after the election. The sessions have been real eye-openers and have shown him how crucial a budget strategy is to everything else he wants to accomplish." Transition co-director Craig Fuller, who was Bush's vice-presidential chief of staff, agrees that the President has but recently delved deep into the budget. Bush is only now fully aware of the difficulties facing his "flexible freeze," says Fuller, especially if interest rates do not drop by the 3 percentage points that Reagan's last budget wildly assumes they will.