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(August 7, 1997 00:39 a.m. EDT) -- It was quite a scene, that budget-signing ceremony at the White House. Maybe you saw it on television: President Clinton thanking House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Newt thanking the president, Democrats and Republicans proclaiming undying affection for one another and unbridled elation over this deal they struck with the taxpayers' money.
Maybe I'm an incurable skeptic, but all that bipartisan ecstasy screamed for an observation: Any time the politicians in Washington are this thrilled about anything, the taxpayers need to lock up their wallets.
At first glance, the revelry seemed justified. As Clinton pointed out, the two bills he was signing promised the first balanced budget in a generation and the biggest tax cuts since 1981. And as Clinton and Gingrich noted, the budget deal is the product of determined bipartisan negotiations between Republicans and Democrats -- negotiations that seemed to signal a new era of cooperation and progress for America.
The speeches on the South Lawn Tuesday were the rhetorical equivalent of high-fives. I'm guessing that the only reason the speakers didn't exchange actual high-fives was because they couldn't raise their arms after spending so much time patting themselves on the back.
But let's step back and think about this. When it comes to taxing and spending, Democrats and Republicans are almost always on different planets. The two parties have completely disparate philosophies about the role of government in America, totally incompatible visions for the nation's future.
How could both sides be so thoroughly overjoyed with one tax-and-budget plan? If Clinton loves it, shouldn't Gingrich hate it? If Gingrich loves it, shouldn't Clinton be reaching for his veto pen?
The budget deal was a compromise. And when you compromise, you give up something you want and/or accept something you don't like. Clinton and Gingrich were praising the budget plan as if they both got exactly what they wanted.
Which is exactly why the taxpayers need to be wondering what the heck is going on here.
In fact, the historic budget deal is basically a grab bag of each side's pet projects and proposals. The Republicans agreed to let Clinton spend more money on government programs; Clinton agreed to let Republicans cut taxes.
The goal of the compromise was not to establish effective fiscal policy but to enable Democrats and Republicans to tell their constituencies that the budget deal gives them something. The deal inn't about economics; it is about politics.
If you don't believe me, consider the analysis of "Newsweek" economics columnist Robert J. Samuelson. He said the celebrated budget deal "actually "delays" a balanced budget" because the deal calls for tax cuts and new spending that will combine to increase the deficit during the next few years; without this deal, he said, the nation's high-flying economy could have balanced the budget in 1998.
The bills that Clinton signed call for a balanced budget in 2002, Samuelson wrote, but "optimistically assumes Congress will make future spending cuts ...
"The whole exercise exhibits an enormous contempt for the public's intelligence and integrity. The budget agreement spends more and taxes less. To describe it as a balanced-budget deal violates normal ... notions of honesty and candor."
Talking about honesty and candor, Gingrich made a frightfully misleading statement Tuuesday, saying that "if you're working and you have a tax liability, you're going to get a tax cut."
Wrong. You'll get a shot at a tax cut under the plan if you have kids, IRAs or capital gains, or if you are in line for a juicy inheritance. Just about everyone else is out of luck.
But know this: Everyone will get in on the tax "increase" that will occur if the budget deal turns out to be a fraud and the deficit explodes and the geniuses in Washington make a bipartisan decision that the government needs more bucks to finance the promises that politicians can't stop themselves from making.
When the pols are happy, the taxpayers are usually in trouble.