THE HOUSE

Unemployment Checks

By a vote of 261 to 150, the House passed a stopgap bill (HR 5260) extending until early next year the law providing additional unemployment checks to those who have used up their initial 26 weeks or so of state-federal benefits. The bill also permanently changes the law to make it easier in future recessions for the long-term jobless to automatically receive additional checks.

To pay its estimated $5.8-billion cost through 1997, the bill sharply increases unemployment taxes on employers, limits to $1 million the corporate deduction for an executive’s salary and limits the personal exemption for wealthy taxpayers.

The bill was touted by its Democratic authors as an economic lifeline but denounced as fiscally irresponsible by a majority of Republicans and the White House.

A yes vote supported the additional unemployment benefits.

How They Voted Yea Nay No vote Rep. Beilenson (D) x Rep. Berman (D) x Rep. Gallegly (R) x Rep. Lewis (R) x Rep. Moorhead (R) x Rep. Thomas (R) x Rep. Waxman (D) x

Defense Budget

By a vote of 198 to 168, the House sent the Senate a $270-billion defense budget for fiscal 1993. Foes were mostly conservatives who saw the post-Cold War military plan as too dovish. The bill (HR 5006) continues the B-2 bomber and Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) at Pentagon-approved funding levels and begins a conversion of defense-dependent jobs and companies to a peacetime economy.

It cuts at least $3.5 billion from the cost of defending countries that are allies but also economic rivals, and sets the stage for withdrawing up to 60% of the 400,000 U.S. troops abroad within a few years. The bill sets a one-year moratorium on U.S. nuclear testing if the former Soviet republics continue to ban nuclear explosions.

Supporter Earl Hutto (D-Fla.) said, “The American people want a strong national defense, but reality dictates that it be a leaner ... force” than in recent decades.

Opponent Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) said, “It’s just too bad that Congress does not want to dismantle the deficit as much as it wants to dismantle the Defense Department.”

A yes vote supported the bill.

How They Voted Yea Nay No vote Rep. Beilenson (D) x Rep. Berman (D) x Rep. Gallegly (R) x Rep. Lewis (R) x Rep. Moorhead (R) x Rep. Thomas (R) x Rep. Waxman (D) x

Abortion Issue

By a vote of 216 to 193, the House adopted an amendment to the 1993 defense budget (above) permitting women in the armed services and dependents to receive privately financed abortions at military health facilities abroad. Supporter Marilyn Lloyd (D-Tenn.) said, “I have never condoned abortion” but that women deserve “the best reproductive health care services available” if it is their decision to have one.

Opponent Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) said the amendment goes beyond Roe vs. Wade with a “mandate that every military hospital . . . provide abortions on demand.”

A yes vote was to enable the military to provide abortions at overseas facilities.

How They Voted Yea Nay No vote Rep. Beilenson (D) x Rep. Berman (D) x Rep. Gallegly (R) x Rep. Lewis (R) x Rep. Moorhead (R) x Rep. Thomas (R) x Rep. Waxman (D) x

Balanced Budget

By a vote of 280 to 153, the House failed to approve a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. Supporters fell nine votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage of the measure (HJ Res 290) sponsored by Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.).

Congress and the President were to have kept spending within each year’s anticipated revenue, beginning as early as fiscal 1995, with deficits permitted only in wartime or if allowed by three-fifths majorities of both houses. Taxes could have been raised by simple majority votes.

Supporter Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) said, “We all recognize that amending the Constitution is a serious undertaking, but the time has come not to allow this and future Congresses and Presidents to blithely continue wayward fiscal practices.”

Opponent Jack Brooks (D-Tex.) called the measure “the mother of all Erector Sets” that is “an outrageous and dangerous abdication of our responsibilities as elected officials which stands on its head the basic principle . . . of accountability.”

A yes vote supported the Stenholm proposal.

How They Voted Yea Nay No vote Rep. Beilenson (D) x Rep. Berman (D) x Rep. Gallegly (R) x Rep. Lewis (R) x Rep. Moorhead (R) x Rep. Thomas (R) x Rep. Waxman (D) x

Source: Roll Call Report Syndicate