BOND SAYS CLINTON TAKING CREDIT FOR GOP AGENDA

The frustrating thing for Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond isn't that the Clinton administration has thwarted Republican efforts at government reform.

It's that the president continues to claim as his own the same GOP issues he consistently foils, Bond says.

The senior senator from Missouri discussed Republican reform efforts -- the successes and failures -- in a meeting Tuesday with the Southeast Missourian editorial board. The meeting was part of Bond's sweep through Southeast Missouri, where he heard from constituents in Jackson, Dexter, Sikeston and Cape Girardeau.

In a predictably partisan discussion, Bond criticized Clinton for giving lip service to moderate government reform while opposing those reforms with his actions.

When Republicans last year passed a bill that balanced the budget by 2002, President Clinton's advisers used the bill as an opportunity to score political points, Bond said.

"While the president agreed to sit down and talk about a balanced budget, he also recognized the political power of demagoguing proposals to reform the entitlement programs," Bond said. "Clinton's political operatives used it as an opportunity to gain momentum on the political side by criticizing the budget."

By doing so, Clinton's status rose in opinion polls. It didn't hurt that national groups like the American Association of Retired Persons and big labor spent money repeating the president's "misstatements of truth" in political ads, Bond said. The upshot was the president enjoyed temporary political success through the campaign.

But that success won't bring the nation any closer to solving the problem of a Medicare system that, if left unchanged, will be broke in six years.

"The president wants to get around major systemic reform of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security by whittling around the edges," Bond said.

What's needed, he said, is to change some of the fundamental flaws in the programs. Through Medicare, for example, the government fixes medical prices while allowing medical providers to determine how many eligible recipients they serve.

With fixed prices, it often is impossible for doctors and hospitals to serve too many Medicare patients without losing money. Those that do take Medicare patients look for ways to put more medical services on the government-subsidized bill, which further drives up costs in the program.

"Republicans want Medicare recipients to be able to choose options for private health care in some cases," Bond said. "What we've seen in the private sector is that prices have been brought under control by competition."

If left alone, the system will be broke in six years. If simply tinkered with by more price controls and mandated care -- as the president wants to do -- Medicare will go bust even sooner, Bond said.

Although he talks about balancing the budget and trimming government, 95 percent of Clinton's budget cuts wouldn't occur until 2001 and 2002. "That just doesn't pass the smell test," Bond said.

President Clinton hasn't limited his political opportunism to the budget battle, the senator said.

Bond sponsored a bill to reform public housing that included a provision that allowed tenants to be thrown out of public housing on their first conviction of a drug offense. The bill passed the Senate, but before it could get House approval and go to the White House for the president's signature, he signed a much-publicized executive order -- his "one strike and you're out" proposal -- that does the same thing.

Still, Bond says Republicans are making headway in their effort to make needed reforms. Popular issues like the balanced budget amendment, which failed to get Senate approval last year, welfare reform and tort reform will resurface in the coming year.

And Bond's bill to pull in the reins on government agencies that regulate small businesses was approved as part of the just-signed emergency appropriations bill. That bill allows the government to continue operating while Congress and the president try to pass a budget for a year that's half over.

Bond is eying the November election with the hope that a win by U.S. Sen. Bob Dole will ease Republican efforts at government reform and a balanced budget.