REPUBLICANS HOLD TO CONSERVATIVE COURSE BACKED BY VOTERS

Early signs from the leadership of the first Republican Congress to be re-elected in 68 years are encouraging. Statements urging the search for common ground and for bipartisanship are mostly for public consumption in the aftermath of a bitterly partisan campaign. Listen closely to congressional leaders, and you will hear this message from the Republican majority: There will be little, if any backtracking in the basic conservative course charted for the nation after the Republican landslide of 1994.

The tone was set by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. "In this Congress, there won't be any debate over whether to balance the budget, only over how and whether to do it," Armey said. "And there will no longer be any debate over whether to replace socially harmful welfare programs with a new emphasis on work and responsibility -- only debate over the best ways to end the cycle of dependency." Armey noted, tellingly, that this year Americans elected a Democratic president and Republican representatives who ran on conservative platforms of "smaller government, lower taxes, a balanced budget, saving Medicare, improving education and cleaning up our environment."

Rep. Armey is right, and his statement serves to illustrate just how far the Republican victories of 1994, confirmed by last month's election results, have moved the debate in this country. President Bill Clinton, brilliantly (if cynically) repositioning himself after his 1994 repudiation, ran essentially as a moderate Republican in favor of all these GOP positions. It must be noted, however, that recent news that the president will seek to restore cuts that Congress passed and he signed just months ago don't build confidence. But then who expected Bill Clinton to keep his word on this? He signalled to key Democratic constituencies, even before the election, that one reason to re-elect him was to ensure him a chance to fix the welfare reform bill he signed.

Meanwhile, the Republican governors, who number 32 and govern 74 percent of the American population, met with GOP congressional leaders last week in Michigan. These leaders promised swift House and Senate action on a balanced-budget constitutional amendment which, if successful, would then be submitted to all the state legislatures for ratification debates. While promising to work with President Clinton in every possible way, they promised to continue pushing for tax cuts. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that while the party was happy to take an "incrementalist approach" for the next few years, passing "the largest possible signable tax cut" in 1997 and then revisiting the issue every year after that. "It adds up to a whole lot by the year 2000," he said. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott emphasized the GOP would renew its push for badly needed cuts in the capital-gains tax to stimulate an economy he correctly noted is showing signs of sluggishness.

Then there is Medicare. Having been ruthlessly bludgeoned in some of the most shameless demagoguery in American history over alleged "cuts," Republican leaders are right to reject White House overtures to form a bipartisan commission on this topic. Let the president lay out his own plans for restraining the growth of Medicare, steps that every informed observer knows must, in some fashion, be done. The campaign is over, but America's fundamental conservative course is unchanged.