Democrats Push $2 Billion in Emergency Aid to Cities

Congressional Democrats on Friday approved more than $2 billion in emergency assistance for Los Angeles and other cities, nearly twice the amount President Bush has said he is willing to accept.

The package, which includes funds to aid Los Angeles in the wake of riots five weeks ago, was adopted over Republican protests during a stormy meeting intended to reconcile differences in separate aid bills passed last month by the House and the Senate.

The $2-billion legislation must be approved by both the House and the Senate and then be signed into law by Bush, who almost certainly would veto it.

Democrats conceded that they cannot muster the two-thirds vote needed to override a veto. One key Democrat, who asked not to be named, said that his party might not even be able to get enough support to pass the package in the House.

The original $495-million measure passed the House on a vote of 244 to 162. The Senate later approved a $1.94-billion version of the legislation.

If the House rejects the $2-billion package, the measure would be sent back to the conference committee, which would then have to craft a more acceptable aid package before Congress adjourns for its July 4 recess.

Angry Republican conferees, who all refused to sign the agreement, charged that election-year politics were at play in the Democrats’ decision to ram the larger bill through, turning what started out as emergency assistance for Los Angeles and Chicago, which was hit by massive flooding, into a “Christmas tree” of federal grants and add-ons that they knew the White House would not accept.

“What happened today was a disaster for the country,” Rep. Joseph M. McDade (R-Pa.), the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, said after the conference.

Through a series of “bizarre twists and turns,” what began as a bipartisan effort to respond quickly to the damage done in Los Angeles and Chicago ended “in a partisan process aimed at embarrassing the President by forcing him to veto a bill they (the Democrats) knew he would not sign,” McDade said.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) disagreed, however, and urged Bush to reconsider his threat to veto the bill, which contains provisions the President has endorsed.

“I can’t imagine why the President would want to threaten to veto a bill that includes all the things he says he’s for,” Foley told reporters.

As currently written, the bill includes $675 million for a summer jobs program, $250 million in extra funding for the Head Start program and $250 million in aid to poor schools, in addition to the nearly $500 million that the House originally approved to directly aid the victims of the Los Angeles riots and the Chicago floods.

The $500 million is in the form of loans from the Small Business Administration and direct relief payments from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

It also includes $250 million for Bush’s own “weed and seed” proposal--a mix of anti-crime and social measures--as well as smaller amounts of funding for a variety of other urban programs.

It closely resembles the aid package passed by the Senate last month, but it includes slightly more money for small business loans.

The Administration earlier this week said that the most it would accept was the $500 million in emergency aid for Los Angeles and Chicago, along with another $500 million to create summer jobs.

But it threatened a veto of the other appropriations on grounds that they did not meet the criteria for “emergency spending” that is exempt from budget rules requiring that new spending not increase the budget deficit.