Congress Enacts Stopgap Spending Bill Amid Annual Budget Battle

Congress and the White House performed their annual rite of autumn Tuesday, haggling over the new fiscal year’s budget into the waning hours of the old fiscal year and then riding to the rescue with a last minute, stopgap bill that averted a government shutdown and bought time for more bickering.

With new funding levels for fiscal year 1987 still up in the air as federal bookkeepers prepared to close the ledgers on fiscal 1986 at midnight Tuesday, the Reagan Administration warned that it would begin closing shop at non-essential agencies if spending authority actually expired.

Threats Routine

Such threats have proved routine--and idle--in recent years as Congress has consistently failed to finish work on spending measures before the Oct. 1 start of each fiscal year. And, true to form, lawmakers once again averted a crisis by approving a short-term spending bill that will cover government expenses through Oct. 8.

The package was sent to President Reagan after the Senate approved it on a voice vote and the House passed it, 315 to 101.

Two Rival Measures

The agreement, however, did nothing to resolve underlying differences over the permanent spending packages. Last week, the House passed a $562-billion omnibus measure, the largest spending bill ever approved by that body, while the Senate is still considering a $556-billion version.

Although ostensibly money bills, the rival measures differ not only in size but in substance as numerous non-spending riders have been attached. A major controversy looms over language in the House measure that would impose several arms control initiatives on the Administration, including restrictions on nuclear weapons testing, chemical weapons production and research on the “Star Wars” space-based defense system.

Administration officials have warned that Reagan would veto any final legislation if several provisions in the House bill, including the arms measures, are not dropped.

‘In a Morass’

Critics of the short-term money bill complained that the impasse over the permanent spending package serves to illustrate a lack of congressional will to make tough decisions on spending. “I wonder what the public out there thinks?” asked Rep. Silvio O. Conte (R-Mass.), ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. “We can’t legislate. We’re in a morass. We’re in a barrel of molasses.”

Indeed, the Senate made little headway Tuesday in efforts to wade through its version of the permanent measure as it remained stuck for the second day on the first of at least 73 amendments it was expected to consider. That proposal involved moves to exempt beer wholesalers with exclusive distributorship territories from anti-trust laws.

Earlier this month, officials had estimated that government borrowing would hit the debt ceiling of $2.1 trillion at midnight Tuesday. However, the Treasury Department advised Congress that it could scrape through until mid-October before running out of borrowing power. That gives lawmakers a few more days to pass legislation hiking the debt ceiling.