GOP Leaders Delay Action on Spending Cuts

The fast-paced Republican timetable for passage of the party’s conservative revolution encountered its first major delay Wednesday as House GOP leaders abandoned their promise to decide on massive federal spending cuts by the end of January.

Slippage of the central element of the GOP agenda may jeopardize the 100-day schedule for passage of the House Republican “contract with America.” House leaders acknowledged that they are having more trouble than they had anticipated in identifying and agreeing on the $200 billion in spending cuts needed to finance the contract, marking the first serious setback for the new majority as it encounters the realities of governing.

The delay is also significant because Republican leaders have vowed not to pass tax cuts that are at the heart of the contract until they have enacted the spending cuts needed to pay for them.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) insisted, however, that the contract is not in trouble. But they acknowledged that the smooth “glide path” toward a balanced federal budget that they envisioned as recently as two weeks ago is turning into a much tougher ride.

House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio), who said last week that the leadership planned to have the spending cuts ready by the end of January, also acknowledged Wednesday that he will not be able to meet an April 15 deadline for issuing a second, broader list of cuts detailing how Republicans plan to comply with a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

*

Republican leadership sources said senior House committee chairmen have begun to resist the sweeping nature of many of their party’s budget-cutting proposals. Kasich, designated by Gingrich as point man on the spending reductions needed to finance the GOP agenda, has found many chairmen stunned to learn that just as they are gaining power for the first time in decades, Kasich and Gingrich want to gut the programs under their jurisdiction.

“You are seeing the natural friction between appropriators and budgeteers that always develops in Congress when you are talking about cutting spending--you even see it among Republicans,” said one senior House Republican staff member. “I think that Kasich is getting frustrated because he is finding that other chairmen want to make sure we consider these cuts carefully.”

Some House committee chairmen also pushed successfully to get Kasich and Gingrich to delay their spending proposals until after President Clinton unveils the Administration’s budget on Feb. 6, Republican sources said. Originally, Kasich had hoped to steal the spotlight from Clinton by issuing his blueprint first. But other Republicans apparently want to see the direction of the Clinton plan before agreeing to Kasich’s cuts, which will be much deeper.

“Look, this is really hard work and there are a lot of pieces we’re not going to get right the first time,” Gingrich said.

Still, GOP leaders vowed that they should still be able to maintain the 100-day timetable for their contract. Kasich said he now hopes to unveil his budget proposals sometime in February.

“The delay on the spending (cuts) has not become significant enough to threaten the contract yet. . . . If it got delayed another couple of weeks, I’d be concerned. But so far I think we are OK,” said Ed Gillespie, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.).

Gingrich and Dole also noted that Tuesday’s final House action on a bill to apply federal workplace laws to Congress underscored that Republicans are keeping their campaign promises. House leaders said they will pass legislation on two other critical elements of the contract--a bill to relieve states of the burden of complying with unfunded federal mandates and a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution--before President Clinton’s State of the Union Address next Tuesday.

“We will have three major pieces of legislation passed in the House by the time of the State of the Union (Address), and I think that is a stunning pace by any measure,” said Gingrich spokesman Tony Blankley. “We’ve had a few bumps in the road, but by the standards of any previous Congress, what we are accomplishing is remarkable.”

Delays in the Senate on new initiatives may cause even greater Republican frustration, however. Dole acknowledged that Democratic opposition is slowing passage of the balanced-budget amendment and legislation on unfunded mandates. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) has used an obscure parliamentary procedure to delay action on the amendment, and the Senate has been stalled over unfunded mandates for the last week.

GOP leaders, sensing the need to call in reinforcements to renew their momentum, announced Wednesday that they have enlisted business lobbies and conservative interest groups to drum up grass-roots support to pass the contract’s far-reaching mix of tax and spending cuts.

The lobbying effort will bring together groups as diverse as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Christian Coalition in an effort to give energy to a write-in and call-in campaign to pressure members of Congress into passing the major planks of the GOP campaign contract as quickly as possible, said Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who is coordinating the effort on behalf of the GOP leadership.

*

Also Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted, 15 to 3, to pass a balanced-budget amendment, sending it to the Senate floor, where 67 votes are needed for approval. Prospects for swift congressional approval are somewhat dim, however, because the Senate version does not contain a key provision of the House measure.

The House Judiciary Committee has already passed a similar amendment--but with a requirement that three-fifths of each house of Congress must vote for any tax increase, a provision absent from the Senate measure.

As Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) conceded Wednesday night: “We do not have the votes” for such a requirement in the Senate.

The amendment--the No. 1 item on the GOP legislative agenda--would change the Constitution and require the country to operate on a balanced budget by the year 2002.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen also contributed to this story.