House Votes for More Jobless Aid; Veto Seen

Defying a White House veto threat, the House approved a $5.8-billion measure Tuesday night to help long-term unemployed Americans by extending emergency jobless payments for another six months.

The vote was 261 to 150, far short of a veto-proof majority.

President Bush is expected to reject the legislation on grounds that it would raise business taxes and undermine spending limits in the Budget Enforcement Act. The measure was sent to the Senate for action before the current law extending benefits expires on July 4.

Unlike previous legislation the House bill would permanently change the national unemployment compensation system to provide expanded payments to those who are jobless after their regular 26 weeks of benefits expire. It would raise employer-paid unemployment compensation taxes over 10 years to pay for higher benefits.

The vote came as the House prepared to open debate today on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution that Bush has made his top priority. Despite Bush’s support, however, the outcome of the proposed amendment remained too close to call as Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and other opponents stepped up their efforts.

During the debate on jobless benefits, Republicans argued the bill would spend billions more in the early years than it would collect in new revenues. Democratic sponsors, however, said that the measure would produce a surplus of $250 million over a six-year period.

The bill would provide 20 or 26 weeks of extra payments, depending on a state’s jobless rate, to workers who exhaust their regular benefits after June 13. It would phase out by the end of March, 1993, or earlier if the national unemployment rate drops below an average 6.5% over a three-month period.

Starting on Oct. 1, 1993, the bill would make permanent changes in the law to trigger extended benefits for 13 weeks if a state’s total unemployment rose above 6%, or for 20 weeks if the rate went above 8%.

“The Democratic leadership is intent on playing high-stakes veto poker and using the nation’s unemployed as bargaining chips,” said Rep. GeralH. Solomon (R-N.Y.).

House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), however, replied: “It is as if the Administration is more comfortable debating the politics of unemployment than in ending the suffering of the unemployed.”

Earlier Tuesday, on the eve of debate on the balanced-budget amendment, the House spurned an attempt by the Democratic leadership to rush through a bill that would require the President and congressional budget committees to offer a balanced budget. The legislation, however, would not actually have required Congress to avoid deficit-free spending.

Proponents fell far short of achieving a majority, much less the two-thirds majority that was required under a fast-track procedure for the legislation. It had been derided as a sham by Republican opponents who said it was designed only to provide political cover for those against the balanced-budget amendment. The vote was 220 to 199 against the bill.

Bush, appearing at a fund-raising dinner in Harrisburg, Pa., promised a “full-court press” on behalf of a balanced-budget amendment. “No statute can substitute for the force of the Constitution of the United States. An amendment is the only answer.”

Foley, however, said in a National Press Club speech that changing the Constitution as the President favored would make the United States “a weaker nation, both at home and abroad, weaker economically, weaker militarily and weaker politically.

“The President and his predecessor have had it in their power to submit balanced budgets for many years and they have not done so,” Foley said. “Our present deficit problem is relatively short-lived, reaching its present proportions only during the last decade or so. Its cure is also clear: cut spending and/or increase taxes. We do not need to amend the Constitution to do that.”

While sponsors of the amendment claimed they had the necessary two-thirds majority for approval, Foley said: “It’s very, very close. It’s going to be passed or lost by a few votes one way or another.”

Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), chairman of the House Budget Committee and a leading opponent of the amendment, accused House members of voting for the constitutional change because they are running scared in this unpredictable election year.

“We’re entering the balanced budget follies week,” Panetta said in an emotional floor speech. “There is no amendment that is going to give the membership the guts and courage to make the right decision. . . . My God, do we always have to seek some excuse for not doing the right thing?”

In the Senate, where a similar vote is expected before the end of June, the prospects for passage of a balanced-budget amendment appeared to be uncertain because of strong opposition by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The chief proponent of the measure, Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), acknowledged that support has eroded over the last few weeks.

If approved by a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate, the amendment would have to be ratified by 38 of the nation’s state legislatures.