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As they watched the whole messy business unfold, more than two-thirds of Americans told pollsters they thought both sides were just playing political games rather than actually trying to resolve the issue. But if this really were an epidemic of "politics as usual," it would all be over by now. The shape of a compromise has been clear for months. In the normal way of Washington, some promises would be forgotten and some numbers turned to fudge, so that everybody could declare victory and go home. If the President and the majority in Congress and the public are united in their desire for an end to deficit spending, why is it so difficult to agree on a plan?
For the same reason that while everyone wants to go to heaven, nobody wants to die. It has been 27 years since anyone even proposed a credible, if painful, plan to balance the budget. There can be no chance of balance without reining in entitlements like Medicare, but Clinton knows full well that his party will mutiny if he goes too far. Likewise, the G.O.P.'s plan to cut taxes by $245 billion makes the whole enterprise easier to sell but harder to do. Anything below $200 billion, House Republicans have insisted publicly, is unacceptable. Then there are the eternal schisms, over farm subsidies and foreign aid, over weapons that the Pentagon hasn't asked for but lawmakers defend, and over whether the statehouse or Washington is better equipped to care for the poor. While moderates from both parties may have a compromise in mind, they were not the ones at the table.
Instead the bargaining fell to two men running for President and a third who thinks he doesn't need to if he really wants to run the country. Clinton and Gingrich were burdened by pledges they could not afford to take back, and both were beholden to troops that no longer trust them. They could hear the growing public disgust at the spectacle of furloughed workers and darkened embassies, of unemployment offices shut in Kansas, of service stations in Miami refusing to sell gas to drug-enforcement agents with government American Express cards for fear the bills would not be paid. While the Republicans were taking more heat than the White House, Clinton's ratings for his handling of the budget fight were starting to drop as well. "We can't afford to walk away from the table," said a senior White House adviser, "and neither can they."
By the time the fighting went hand to hand on Tuesday, only the main players were allowed at the table. Clinton, Vice President Gore, Daschle, House minority leader Dick Gephardt and White House chief of staff Leon Panetta sat on the Democratic side. Gingrich, Dole and House majority leader Dick Armey bargained for the Republicans. Once the titans were left alone in the room, the whole tone of the discussions changed from a debate about broad policy issues to a blunt assessment of what it would take to get a deal. And it quickly became clear that neither side knew quite where the other stood. ''What these talks have shown,'' said a Clinton official early on, ''is that both sides have spent the entire year talking about how great their own ideas are without taking the time to learn the advantages of the other side.''