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With taxes and Social Security cuts as killer issues, it took someone with nothing left to lose to put them on the table. Once considered a candidate for Speaker, Rostenkowski lost control of his own committee last session over capital gains and could lose again this year. As a representative from Chicago's North Side for three decades, he is impervious to election-year jitters. Even if he lost his seat, he could walk away from the Hill consoled by $1 million in campaign funds he gets to keep. Moreover, he may have been bitten by the statesman's bug. Colleagues say Rostenkowski envisions a grand compromise on the deficit as the "crowning achievement" of his career.
The plan comes at a time when the emptiness of much of the national agenda has become painfully obvious. Like a teenager promising a night on the town without a dime in his pocket, the Bush Administration is beginning to look a little silly issuing long reports outlining national problems without coming up with any funds for the solutions. Just two weeks ago, Bush unveiled a glossy 129-page "transportation strategy," a litany of crumbling roads, collapsing bridges, clogged highways and congested airports, with such suggestions as states' picking up the tab and installing tollbooths. The transportation strategy resembled the Bush plans for education, health and the environment -- long on rhetoric, short on dollars.
For now, George Bush can enjoy the Democratic discomfort. Eventually, though, the public may also wonder what the President is doing. Asked to explain why the White House will not do more to mount an attack on the deficit, an Administration official replied, "We have done a lot. We have given this plan a lot of credibility." In Washington that's what passes for leadership.
CHART: NOT AVAILABLE
CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola.
CAPTION: REDUCING THE DEFICIT