There are similarities. The indiscriminate mongering of high theory in a town where process tends to smother thought is one. Gingrich, at least, has the virtue of standing on the right side of history: government is more likely to be thinned than thickened in the years to come – and his Contract already has gone much farther than Clinton’s health thing, breezing through the House (so far). But the balanced-budget-amendment fiasco may have broken the spell. And now it’s possible to suss out what is really going to happen this year.

Not all that much, I suspect – although somewhat more than last year. The Contract will be reduced to a few mild procedural reforms (perhaps a line-item veto for the president) and a modest shrinkage of existing federal programs. The Senate’s temperate and venerable Oregonians – who run the two crucial money committees, Appropriations and Finance – will leaven the House’s fiscal radicalism, to Rush Limbaugh’s dismay. (The procedural gimmicks, like term limits, will be put to rest elsewhere.) Appropriations is chaired by Mark Hatfield, the only GOP vote against the balanced-budget amendment ““and no barn-burner,’’ according to a colleague. ““You’re not going to see him kill things like public broadcasting.’’ Trims are more likely than amputations. As for Finance, where tax cuts and welfare reform will be debated, another convenient analogy obtains: this year’s chairman, Bob Packwood, appears about as enthusiastic about the Contract as last year’s chairman, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was about the Clinton health-care plan.

Packwood, of course, won’t say that. He won’t say much of anything about the Contract. ““I think I’ll keep my powder dry,’’ he told me last week. But the chairman has tipped his hand, especially on tax cuts – just as Moynihan let it be known very early last year that he didn’t share the Clintons’ cosmic crisis mode on health care. In February Packwood strafed Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin over Clinton’s modest middle-class tax breaks: ““I’m disappointed,’’ he said. ““I don’t think we have the heart to face up to the real [deficit] problem.’’ Two other Republicans, John Chafee and Alan Simpson, have expressed similar deficit-hawkish reservations. Chafee says the committee might approve $20 billion in cuts over seven years (as opposed to Clinton’s $63 billion and the Contract’s estimated $370 billion). The Rhode Island moderate is, in fact, openly disdainful of the Contract. ““I never signed any contract,’’ he says. ““And I think a lot of those guys voting yes in the House are saying, “Oh, what the heck. The Senate’ll take care of this’.''

Chafee is important. He could be the David Boren of 1995. The Finance Committee operates on a narrow margin: 11 Republicans, 9 Democrats. Any Republican defection can deadlock the committee – just as Boren’s defection killed Bill Clinton’s proposed energy tax in 1993. Which brings us to welfare reform, an issue Republicans consider absolutely essential, the throbbing heart of the Contract. ““Welfare reform may be the closest thing we have to health care,’’ says William Kristol, the Republican strategist. ““We have to show some progress before the next election.''

Indeed, as the various Contract components wane and die in the Senate, pressure is likely to mount for a high-profile victory on welfare. The pressure on Bob Dole will be particularly intense – and Bob Packwood owes Bob Dole a favor. Dole has stood behind Packwood during his long, embarrassing agony over charges that he sexually harassed dozens of staffers (the Senate ethics committee and a federal grand jury are still trying to decide how to handle the accusations). ““Dole said, “You want to fight this out, I’m with you,’ and he provided a lot of emotional support when the senator was down,’’ says a former Packwood aide. ““I think you’re going to find Packwood giving Dole just what he wants on welfare,’’ says a Finance staffer.

Actually, Packwood’s current position sounds rather Contractual. He wants to turn the program back to the states, with no requirement that welfare continue as an entitlement. ““The only string I’d put on would be, you can’t use the money to buy boats,’’ he says. This entitlement question is likely to be the great symbolic divide on welfare, just as ““universal coverage’’ was on health care. Conservatives don’t believe every poor person – a teenager who has a baby, for example – has a ““right’’ to be supported. Faced with a passel of presidential challengers to his right, Bob Dole – a moderate in the past – is likely to drift in that direction as well. In fact, Packwood’s position may be a signal that Dole is already there. ““We expect Packwood will stay close to his Republican colleagues on this,’’ says a GOP leadership source. The trouble is, John Chafee won’t. ““Oh, we can experiment with [giving the program] to the states,’’ Chafee says, ““but it must remain an entitlement.’’ Hmmm. If the Democrats and Chafee hold firm on this, chairman Packwood may have himself a deadlocked committee. And upon this deadlock will rest the fate of the ““Contract With America.''