On the airwaves, the emerging verdict about Bill Clinton’s $700 billion economic plan is pretty clear: people want action on the deficit, but his plan has too many taxes and not enough spending cuts. “People are ready to sacrifice,” says Lionel Kunst, a Kansas City, Kans., carpet manufacturer, talk-show gadfly and early Ross Perot supporter. “Don’t they know that in Washington?” Well, yes they do. The national squawking for sacrifice produced a scene last week that was, for Congress, truly amazing: Democratic leaders demanding to vote on a plan for spending cuts before enacting a $30 billion stimulus package. Allowing members of Congress to vote first on more spending is like “allowing 5-year-olds to have dessert before their meal,” said Sen. David Boren of Oklahoma, “and there are a lot of 5-year-olds around here.” Meanwhile, the president himself promised to find more cutbacks to suggest to Congress.

By the end of the week, however, the president’s aides were backing away from that promise. Perhaps they were listening to the low humming emanating from the K Street corridor, literal and metaphorical home to the city’s vast hive of interest groups. Winning them over–or rolling over them-is essential. Many of these groups represent, one way or another, the same types of people who are on the airwaves. Yet the lobbyists are preparing to insist that disproportionate sacrifice is being asked of their members. So far, most of the complaints are muted by Clinton’s finesse and by the interest groups’ desire not to be seen as standing in the way of a new president’s success. “They’re smart to keep a low profile,” said a top administration aide, “because if they got too visible we’d cut them off at the knees.” Brave words, but it’s still early in the game-and there are more provocations to come. Already, Clinton’s team is talking about a $2-a-pack tobacco tax to help finance health-care reform. The liquor, wine and beer industries are sure to be hit, though Clinton declined to hint as much while standing next to August A. Busch, chairman of Anheuser-Busch, at a meeting of business executives at the White House last week. The White House strategy is to keep its delicately engineered package all in one piece. But there’s plenty of time for K Street to pick it apart, and become the killing ground of the Clinton economic game plan.

Let’s take a stroll down the avenue and its environs and examine whom Clinton has chosen to challenge and why; what the lobbyists’ strategies are for resisting him, and what Clinton and his allies have done-and may yet do-to roll, cajole or divide them so that he can win passage for his plan:

Most of Clinton’s targets were chosen for their Republican tincture, national unpopularity or deep pockets. The energy industry, whose epicenter is George Bush’s sometime hangout, the Houston Petroleum Club, qualifies on all counts. Taxing energy has two extra political benefits going for it. American auto companies think it will encourage consumers to buy more smaller cars, which Detroit has invested billions of unrecouped dollars to build. That, in turn, gives Clinton a toehold in old-line corporate America. And taxing energy can be touted as an environmental measure, especially in smoggy, car-mad California. Thus, the “Btu tax” on the heat content of all forms of energy. Clinton’s proposal-combined with a heavy new tax on crude oil-would raise as much as $33 billion over five years. The oil companies, however, have some heavyweight defenders, like Louisiana Sens. J. Bennett Johnston and John Breaux. They hope to enlist the aid of lawmakers from states with long driving distances and energy-intensive agriculture. Among key farmstate senators who are grumbling: James Exon and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin. But Clinton was thinking ahead when he co-opted his potential biggest foe of all, Lloyd Bentsen of oil-rich Texas, to be Treasury secretary. And because of shrewdness or chaos-in the Clinton years it may never be clear which is which-no one has yet described the mechanism and formulas for levying the tax. As a result, the oil, coal, natural-gas and nuclear-power branches of the vast energy industry already are spending much of their time jockeying for advantage rather than unifying in opposition to the tax. If they do achieve a united front, look out.

To smooth the way for these measures Clinton used the classic “scare ’em and soothe ’em” tactic. First, administration deficit hawks like budget director Leon Panetta floated the notion of a freeze on cost-of-living adjustments for social security. A COLA freeze is to the AARP what DefCon Four is to the Pentagon. But then, early in February, Clinton invited AARP top brass to the White House and assured them there would be no COLA freeze at all and promised to consult with them regularly. When Clinton unveiled his plan, he got what he wanted from the AARP: silence. “It was brilliantly done,” said one top seniors’ lobbyist.

But pressure is building on another front. Medicare premiums are rising and seniors worry that the quality of care is declining as the government tries to ratchet down Medicare spending. Clinton has another strategy to soothe the AARP. Administration officials are telling seniors’ lobbyists that they should hold their fire about Medicare until they see the new national health-care system Hillary Rodham Clinton is devising. Meanwhile, Clintonians argue, the AARP should support the overall Clinton economic plan when it comes up for a largely symbolic, but still crucial, vote in a few weeks.

The answer: a polite no dice. In a statement released late last week, the AARP said that it would “withhold” support for the Clinton budget plan until it sees the details of the national health proposal, due out in May.

But the key to selling it all is one man, Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia. Ironically, the recent clash between Clinton and Nunn on the issue of gays in the military could yield positive results. The spat taught both men how much they need each other. A deeply traditional man, Nunn doesn’t want to be seen as being disrespectful to the commander in chief-at least so soon after trashing and then rescuing him on the gay issue. So far, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee has been typically cautious in discussing Clinton’s proposal. “It is certainly more than I recommend,” he said in his bland way last week, when pressed by reporters.

Clinton, for his part, can be expected to pay elaborate respect to the prickly Nunn. In other words, all the president needs to do is a little lobbying. Judging from his skillful moves thus far, he more than meets K Street standards.