As Second Term Nears, Compromise Is in the Breeze

President Clinton is approaching his second term with a legislative agenda vastly less ambitious and notably more pragmatic than the sweeping wish list he put before Congress four years ago. The Republican leadership, on its part, has apparently decided that in the continuing era of divided government its best course is to propose to find common ground with Clinton on the nation’s needs. Newt Gingrich, newly renominated by fellow Republicans as the House speaker, sees “an absolute moral obligation to make this system work.” That sets a high standard indeed for bipartisan cooperation. Clinton and the Republicans will very quickly have the chance to show whether they can meet it.

Some commentators have interpreted this year’s election results, which extended GOP control of Congress while returning Clinton to the White House, as evidence that the public is ready to tolerate and even approve of further gridlock. But if election day sent any overarching message--by no means a certainty, given the ascendancy of personality over party in dictating voting choice--it may have been that what the public wants most is non-ideological politics built on consensus and aimed at effecting gradual, moderate change.

Clinton himself, who infuriated Republicans by co-opting no small part of their program in the months preceding the election, has hurried to embrace that notion. Adopting historian Arthur Schlesinger’s phrase, Clinton sees the election as strongly endorsing “the vital center” in national politics. Ideologues on both the left and right will scorn that appraisal, but clearly it seems to fit the moment. For now, the era of big government is over, and so too is anything like majority support for a rigidly partisan approach to governance. Clinton and Congress, Democrats and Republicans, will find plenty to continue arguing about, and in the end partisan calculation could still triumph over cooperation. But for the time being there’s ample opportunity and apparently a genuine readiness to try to work together.

The president has put balancing the budget at the top of his agenda, and Republicans can hardly not concur. The fighting will be over where to cut spending to get to that objective. Controlling the growth of entitlements has become unavoidable, with Medicare at the head of the list. Here Clinton must take the lead--and accept the political heat--since the Republicans, whose own ideas for controlling Medicare growth were mercilessly distorted by Democrats during the campaign, are in no mood to be beaten up again. The GOP is likely to be more ready to work with Clinton to extend health insurance and provide greater government support for post-high school education.

Exposure of illegal foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee has made Clinton an advocate of campaign finance reform. Gingrich, who has never liked the idea, ignored the subject in presenting his legislative outlook last week. But here is clearly an area where abuse of the public trust has become so flagrant that comprehensive change must come. Cleaning up the mess is too important to be left to the politicians. One of the first items of legislative business that the nation should demand in 1997 is agreement by Congress and the White House on a nonpartisan commission to overhaul the loophole-riddled campaign finance laws.