With talk of common bonds and better tomorrows, President Clinton and Republicans hit the airwaves - separately - Saturday to sell the nation on how their balanced-budget and tax bills will fatten the family savings account.
A new poll suggested Americans are skeptical."There has been a lot of cheering here in Washington, but there's been cheering on Main Street as well, for the real impact of this budget will be in the lives, the dreams and the futures of families all across America," Clinton said in his weekly radio broadcast from the Oval Office.
He was joined there by three families, including a working mother with two children lacking health insurance, who he said would directly benefit from the legislation to be signed in a splashy White House celebration on Tuesday. The package, designed to balance the federal budget by 2002, includes tax cuts worth $152 billion over the next five years.
Republicans, in their own broadcast, similarly sought to put a human face on the balanced-budget and tax measures hammered out between the Democratic president and the GOP-led Congress.
"It is about the single mother with children in high school, who will now be able to send her kids to college," said Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo. "It's about looking at your paycheck with the satisfaction of knowing there will be something left at the end of the week."
But a CNN/Time survey found that, while 59 percent of Americans believe the legislation will benefit the country, just one-third expect it to benefit them personally. Only one in 10 believes his or her own taxes will go down. A majority - 52 percent - said it was unlikely that the budget agreement would actually result in a balanced budget.
Despite public doubts, Clinton and his Republican partners patted themselves on the back for working together, even as their separate radio addresses mirrored their separate, celebratory announcements - from opposite ends of Pennsylvania Avenue - when final agreement was reached last week.
"We have come together to conquer one of our most persistent problems," Clinton said. "I hope that's how we'll meet all our challenges in the years to come."
Hulshof, too, suggested that a cooperative spirit could reach beyond the immediate legislation. "We have taken a major step toward restoring America's faith in the democratic process and hope for a better tomorrow," he said.
Still, there was a hint of dissatisfaction at the end of long negotiations that left Republicans with shallower tax cuts than they'd wanted. "No one is claiming this bipartisan agreement is perfect," said Hulshof. "But we must not allow that perfect to be the enemy of the good."