COMMENTARY by Howard Gleckman

SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM? NOT WITHOUT CLINTON'S LEADERSHIP

On Nov. 19, even as Kenneth Starr and House Judiciary Committee Democrats were engaged in their partisan waltz over the Clinton impeachment, something actually important was happening about 50 yards up Capitol Hill.

There, about half the House Ways & Means Committee -- joined by one camera, a smattering of lobbyists, some school kids, and handful of reporters -- listened as the Clinton Administration made its first formal response to the talk of a major push to fix Social Security in 1999.

It wasn't a pretty sight. The White House sent a mid-level Treasury official with orders to say nothing. Sounding for all the world like Clinton at a Lewinsky deposition, Assistant Secretary David Wilcox was forced to man the White House's carefully constructed stone wall.

Congressional Republicans just wanted to know one thing: What kind of reform plan will the President propose? Poor Wilcox was ordered by his bosses to give away as little as possible. So, manfully, he told the panel, "There is no plan," or, for variety, "We have not ruled that in or out, congressman."

All Wilcox was allowed to say was that the White House indeed did want to fix Social Security, that it hoped Congress would do it next year, and the President would be there to help. But would Clinton actually send a plan to Capitol Hill? Not in this lifetime, he seemed to be saying.

This is all symptomatic of the deep and abiding distrust that has developed between Clinton and Congress. The President's ill-fated effort to reform the nation's health-care system began when he sent a massive, specific bill to Capitol Hill. The plan died the death of a thousand cuts. Ever since, the White House has suffered a pathological inability to send legislation of any kind to Congress. Instead, Clinton lets the lawmakers work their own way through bills. Then, at the last possible moment, the Administration jumps in with suggested changes.

This strategy can work -- in a fashion -- if the bill is some obscure bit of business. But something like Social Security reform will simply not happen without Presidential leadership.

It's true that Republicans are playing something of a game here, too. If Clinton were to lay down his marker, it would be shot at. The GOP surely would call it too timid and a threat to the future of the nation's retirement system.

But that's the nature of the business. Nobody expects Clinton to have a full-blown plan now. It's far too early in the process. But if the President actually expects to get a Social Security fix in '99, he better have a bill ready early next year. If not, perhaps Monica Lewinsky will be his legacy after all.

Gleckman, a senior correspondent in Washington, offers his views frequently on Mondays for Business Week Online

EDITED BY RICHARD S. DUNHAM