Copyright 2002 Journal Sentinel Inc.  
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
January 22, 2002 Tuesday FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 03A

LENGTH: 708 words

HEADLINE: Lawmakers return with low expectations

BYLINE: LAWRENCE M. O'ROURKE McClatchy News Service

BODY:
Washington -- Congress returns to work this week with low expectations and few good options.

The big issues that await the second session of the 107th Congress are grim:

-- Allocating money to fight a war in Afghanistan and wherever else it may spread.

-- Protecting the home front from terrorists.

-- Snapping the economy out of recession, even as the federal budget slips back into red ink.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats on Capitol Hill have yet announced much of a workable agenda. Republicans say they're waiting for President Bush to announce his priorities in his State of the Union address on Jan. 29.

Both parties acknowledge that neither can prevail, with Republicans holding a narrow margin of control in the House and Democrats holding the Senate by virtue of their alliance with independent Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont.

"Congress is walking back with trepidation," said Rep. Robert Matsui (D-Calif.). "The issues are almost unsolvable because the differences between the parties are so great, and there's no willingness to compromise."

The mood on Capitol Hill is in sharp contrast with a year ago, when Congress luxuriated in the prospect of a $5.6 trillion federal budget surplus over the next 10 years.

Out of that came the $1.35 trillion tax cut that Congress enacted as its first piece of major legislation during the Bush administration. The projected surplus also allowed Bush and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) to cut a deal on an education reform bill.

But hopes for much more -- including enactment of a Medicare prescription drug plan and a start toward strengthening Social Security -- fell by the wayside as the economy went sour and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks forced an immediate $40 billion dip into the trust funds.

"We're older and wiser this year than we were last year about 10-year forecasts," said Mitchell Daniels, the president's budget director. "It's already clear that 10-year forecasts can lead to big misses. We need to be a lot more cautious."

The priorities

Even with a deficit rather than a surplus this year, there is plenty of important public business waiting in the wings, Democratic and Republican leaders agree.

Both House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said they want to take crucial first steps this year toward safeguarding Social Security and Medicare.

Both said they want to enact at least an entry-level Medicare prescription drug plan, a farm bill that preserves family ownership, a trade promotion bill that allows the United States to compete effectively on the world market, an energy bill that reduces dependence on foreign oil, and welfare reform.

But with Congress divided and the president promising to work with both sides, the immediate prognosis is a stalemate until crisis forces consensus.

Meanwhile, the spotlight will be on a slew of investigations into the collapse of Enron, the giant Houston-based energy trading company.

Drifting apart

Making the legislative outlook even more dicey is that the House Republican majority has drifted more to the right, and the Senate Democratic majority has drifted more to the left.

These opposite trends have occurred despite the president's regular appeal for bipartisanship. The lull in the political war that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has been replaced by renewed finger-pointing.

Budget chief Daniels holds out hope that Bush and Senate Democrats can strike a deal within the next few weeks on an economic stimulus package that eluded the White House and Congress last month.

But Bush's moves toward Democrats irritate some leading Republicans. Calling for even larger tax cuts than those endorsed by Senate Republicans, two-time GOP presidential aspirant Steve Forbes said, "The Bush economic team has not been aggressive or positive in advancing policies to end the U.S. and global recession."

As the midterm election in November focuses the minds of members on partisan politics, Republicans have set out to demonize Daschle as the embodiment of obstructionism, while Democrats have undertaken to demonize House GOP Whip Tom DeLay of Texas as the personification of right-wing extremism.

LOAD-DATE: January 22, 2002