WASHINGTON WATCH: DEMOCRATS SHOOT DOWN BALANCED BUDGET

Make no mistake about it, the balanced budget amendment was defeated by Senate Democrats not for the good of the country, but for pure political gain. While there are legitimate reasons to be against a balanced budget amendment, the reasons offered by the five Democratic senators who voted for a nearly identical amendment less than a year ago, and against it on Thursday, are nothing but political smoke screen. President Clinton, who last month submitted a budget that will increase the national debt over $1 trillion in the next five years, owes the country an explanation why he worked against the amendment at this critical time.

No single person, however, deserves more opprobrium than Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Conrad, it should be noted, once promised not to seek re-election if he could not pass a balanced budget. Since that promise, he has repeatedly campaigned about the importance of a balanced budget and a balanced budget amendment. So what did he do when the moment of truth came and his one vote could put the measure over the top? Caving into pressure from the White House, he voted against it.

To justify this flip flop, the 47-year old senator charged Republicans with a plan to "loot the Social Security trust fund surplus." It is a specious argument, rejected by over a dozen of his Democratic colleagues, including one of the biggest champions of Social Security on Capitol Hill, Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois. Conrad doesn't seem to mind that his argument makes little sense, however. His strategy -- coordinated with the White House -- is to scare enough senior citizens about Social Security that they won't notice the Democrats' hypocrisy about balanced budgets.

Here are the facts. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole pledged to exempt Social Security benefits and cost-of-living adjustments from GOP efforts to balance the budget by 2002. Both the House and Senate, endorsing these Republican leaders' pledges, passed resolutions taking Social Security off of the table.

The Republican leaders, however, rejected some Democrats' demands to exclude the social security trust fund in computing the deficit. Currently, surpluses from this payroll tax are used by the government -- including President Clinton -- to make the annual deficit appear smaller than it is. By continuing this practice, Republicans would not be touching a penny of the trust funds. But they would be using the funds as an accounting tool to help them reach a balanced budget more quickly.

While this might sound like a bit of smoke and mirrors to allow Republicans to balance the budget without making necessary spending cuts, it's not. Even with the surpluses counted against the deficit, GOP leaders would have to come up with $1.2 trillion of spending savings in seven years to achieve a balanced budget. Excluding the trust funds in figuring the deficit, the Republicans would have to find an additional $600 billion of savings to balance the budget over the same period. This would force the kind of draconian budget cuts Democrats say they believe is unwise. Now here's the kicker. At the current rate of American retirement, the Social Security trust fund will go bankrupt in 2008. Thus, there will be no surpluses to offset the deficit. Indeed, on the country's present course, Social Security itself will go bankrupt not many years after the trust fund. Therefore, instead of threatening Social Security and the Social Security trust fund, a balanced budget amendment may actually be the only way to save them. Unless the government gets the budget under control, there will be no Social Security in the future. There will certainly be no trust fund surpluses.

So why did Sen. Conrad and other Democratic senators decide to sell out? Very simply, they were strong-armed by the Democratic leadership not to give the Republicans a victory. Even more specifically, they were strong-armed not to give Bob Dole a victory. The White House is convinced at this point that Bob Dole is the Republican most likely to beat Bill Clinton in 1996. By keeping Dole from passing a balanced budget amendment, they hope to tarnish his chances among firebrand Republicans, who are dismayed at the slow pace of change in the Senate. For his part, Dole says, "As far as I'm concerned, the balanced budget has nothing to do with presidential politics and everything to do with the American people."The balanced budget amendment is not dead. Dole has promised to bring it up again next year. In the meantime, Americans should watch closely to see who is serious about cutting the budget and the budget deficit. Our and our children's and our grandchildren's future may depend upon it.

Jon K. Rust is a Washington-based writer for the Southeast Missourian.