THE REAL BUDGET

There were cheers Sunday on both sides of the political fence as congressional Republicans reached an agreement with the White House on ending the partial shutdown of the federal government. While gains were made on some counts that were important to both camps, there is still an ominous likelihood that President Clinton and his fellow Democrats will fail on the larger score of providing moral leadership in recognition of the need to balance the budget. This is the theme of the strongly worded editorial from The Washington Post published below on this page. Even though the editorial was written before Sunday's compromise was reached, its clarion call for Democrats to avoid the real default still rings out.

The agreement to bring back government workers who had been furloughed and to reopen national parks is no victory for either side at this point. What has happened is that both sides have been given a reprieve -- from the pressures of public opinion over the shutdown -- and an opportunity -- to bargain some more. If the remaining budget issues, which everyone now agrees must include a plan to balance federal spending in seven years, aren't resolved by mid-December, government is likely to come to a halt once more.

This gives Republicans and Democrats about four weeks to get serious about the nation's most urgent problem. Unless a budget that is truly balanced -- all sides agree the Congressional Office will be the final arbiter on dollars and cents -- is produced in that time frame, Sunday's agreement will be viewed as little more than political posturing and more useless rhetoric.

Still disturbing, however, are the loose ends that were left in the weekend compromise. For example, as the federal government dithered over mostly political divisions, the White House continued to press for an increase -- that's right, an increase -- in the government's borrowing ceiling. With the national debt at $4.9 trillion, Clinton and his advisers were asking permission to go deeper in debt while trying to gain political advantage by advocating a balanced budget.

Another cause for concern is the White House's insistence on "adequate" funding for several key areas, the most costly of which is Medicare. As the Post's editorial reprinted below concludes, continuing to regard Medicare as a sacred cow is old thinking that has no relevance in a realistic endeavor to get the country on a pay-as-you-go basis.

So what, if anything, has been gained by the disruption in government the past six days? There is one major accord that cannot be dismissed lightly. After waffling on the issue, President Clinton has signed off on the need to balance the budget within seven years, as Republicans have proposed all along. That is a significant concession on the part of the White House, which has avoided anything that looked like concurrence with the GOP Contract With America -- simply for the sake of being against anything favored by Republicans and without the benefit of any alternatives.

Now the real work begins in earnest of fashioning a budget plan within the framework not only of the balanced-budget objective, but also the four-week time limit that both sides have imposed on themselves.