Word: pork
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...first sign that the Great Listener had lost touch with the public's willingness to sacrifice came in February, when Clinton unveiled a budget that delivered nearly $500 billion worth of deficit reductions but did so primarily through tax increases, not spending reductions. Then in April a $16 billion pork-laden "stimulus" package failed to win Senate approval. "The country moved ahead of us on spending cuts," said a Cabinet officer, "and most of the Congress is as surprised...
...price was too high or too low: parks, highways and other pork projects served as common currency. As many as 15 lawmakers from peanut-producing states switched when the White House agreed to curb the flow of imported Chinese peanut butter -- at a steep cost to American consumers. Clinton promised to toughen his policy toward Haiti to woo several black lawmakers. One telephone conversation between a Cabinet officer and an undecided lawmaker went like this: "Congressman, I'm sitting here chewing my fingers and wondering what else we can do to win this vote. I know you've talked...
...debate from which the republic could have greatly benefited had it taken place a decade earlier," says the historian Arthur Schlesinger. "He has broken the taboo that has long banned the tax question from public discussion." Should he then be blamed when Republicans follow his lead and scuttle a pork-laden, deficit- increasing stimulus package whose impact on the economy would have been marginal at best? "Maybe, maybe not," says a Clinton adviser, "but the real story is about the President losing his touch. He can't get the modulation right. He's not quite sure...
...masterful at it is cliched, but it's hard not to mention the bottomless political skill of a man who can turn a rough first 100 days to his advantage: Clinton doesn't point to his specific missteps (mainly not cutting out the pork in his stimulus package when moderate Democratic Sen. John Breaux asked him to, thereby sparking a fight over the pork that the Republicans won). Instead, he says, "I may have overextended myself, and we've got to focus on big things...
...loudly and with no emotion. At one point, the head of the institute started chatting with colleagues sitting at a table behind Yeltsin, prompting the Russian President to interrupt his reading and glower at them. The mood lightened only when Yeltsin, 30 minutes into his speech, practiced a little pork-barrel politics and promised the students better living stipends and free trips home. A smattering of applause. Then Yeltsin pledged to increase the subsidy to the student cafeteria. A little more clapping. "If there is scant applause to this, that means food is no problem," said Yeltsin. "Or perhaps...