BETWEEN REPUBLICANS in Congress and President Clinton there was such angry argument over the budget that they shut down the government and called each other names, and there was even a shoving match inside the Capitol.
The fight's not over, just postponed until mid-December when Democrats will be portrayed again as irresponsible spenders and skinflint Republicans will be accused of robbing the sick and the halt while turning widows and orphans onto the streets.So it's reassuring - in Washington, if not elsewhere in the nation - that there's a familiar calm in the middle of the storm, a dependable bipartisan understanding that survives political tumult, changing administrations and switching congressional majorities.
It's the year-in, year-out message the Washington establishment communicates to official newcomers - most specifically, members of Congress and White House operatives - that Washington's needs are top priority when federal money is to be handed out. That's why Washington, for more than two decades, has been first in line for urban mass transit money, financing its splendid subway system with about $10 billion in federal funds while other cities pleaded for scraps. It's why a $1 billion federal office building is nearing completion in downtown Washington, a monstrous palace almost the size of the Pentagon whose planned use was discarded during the Bush administration but whose wildly expensive construction just kept going.
And it's why Congress in the recently passed $37.5 billion transportation bill included a provision to keep shoveling federal planning money into what will become a Washington bridge replacement project that'll cost $1 billion or maybe $2 billion or maybe more.
So the time's obviously ripe for some other Washington establishment project in the billion-dollar range that - like the others - ought to be paid for by all the nation's taxpayers while Washington-area residents benefit from its use and Washington-area land speculators and contractors profit from its construction.
A state-local panel of transportation planners in suburban Virginia, with congressional input, appears to be nearing recommendation of a suitably expensive project for what's likely to be routine, rubber-stamp congressional approval.
What the panel has in mind - since the nation's taxpayers have already paid $10 billion for the Washington Metro system - is an extension of the Metro rail line in northern Virginia about 10 miles west to Dulles International Airport. The cost has been estimated somewhere between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion, as long as it's understood those are ballpark estimates that will only go up the longer the project is delayed.
What we have here - in the $10 billion Metro system, in the $1 billion downtown federal office building, in the planned $2 billion bridge replacement, in scores of other federal projects in the Washington area and now in the suggestions for a $1.6 billion Metro extension to Dulles - is the usual communication between the Washington establishment and its order-takers of whatever political party in Congress and the White House.
The message is that Washington's projects come first.