President Remains Eager to Cut Entitlement Spending

Even before what could emerge as a new plan to rein in entitlements, the administration has been working lately to curb the cost of the government's main health insurance programs. Bush's budget for the fiscal year that starts in October proposed slowing spending on entitlements by $65 billion in the next five years, including a $36 billion reduction in Medicare, which covers health care for older and disabled Americans. Congress rejected the proposals.

In any negotiation, a major issue would be what is being negotiated. Republicans want to focus on the escalating costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- and the creation of private investment accounts -- while Democrats want a broader approach, including such topics as the extension of the Bush tax cuts. It's not fair, they argue, to discuss only one element of the country's fiscal crisis, which experts project will get worse as the baby-boom generation moves into retirement. The cost of the three big entitlement programs amounts to 8 percent of gross domestic product and is projected to double in the next 50 years.

Even structuring a negotiation has become ensnared in wrangling. Gregg has proposed a bipartisan entitlements commission with procedures to bring proposals that have two-thirds support to the Senate floor on an expedited basis. Democrats said the commission would be stacked and have described it as a "sneak attack" on Social Security and Medicare, a claim that causes Gregg to bridle.

"You can't do it unless it's bipartisan, and you can't do it unless there is an element of goodwill," Gregg said. "Right now, there is no bipartisanship and no goodwill."

Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.), the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee, said he recently discussed the issue with Portman and Paulson. He advised them to convene a working group of lawmakers and administration officials to develop a comprehensive plan that could be voted on next year, he said.

"I believe the focus has got to be on the full range of our fiscal imbalances," Conrad said. "It will not lead to success just to focus on entitlements, though they are clearly part of the challenge."

But he voiced skepticism that Bush was genuinely open to a bipartisan approach, saying the administration is continuing to push proposals that would dig the country into deeper debt, such as a cut in the estate tax. Speaking of Paulson, Conrad said, "I think he's a very sincere fellow -- I don't think he's in charge."

Much is clearly riding on the November election results, even though the issue has not figured prominently in the campaigns. John D. Podesta, who tried to work on a Social Security deal with Republicans while serving as President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, said Bush's best hope may well lie in the Republicans losing control of a chamber of Congress.

"If the Democrats are in control, then they have to share power -- there's some responsibility," said Podesta, who heads the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. "If they are sitting there in the minority, there's no trust between the White House and Democrats in Congress. . . . It really requires a shift of power in order to have a different outcome."