White House Complains of GOP Pestering

The White House accused congressional Republicans and their staffs Thursday of deliberately trying to “‘gum up the works” of the executive branch with repeated and harassing requests for information.

“We understand what they’re trying to do and we’re not going to accept it,” presidential Press Secretary Mike McCurry said. Since Republicans took over Congress in January, he said, the Administration has logged 10,000 worker hours meeting congressional requests.

Republicans shrugged off the attack as whining, saying the Administration was only getting back a taste of the medicine Democrat-run oversight committees dished out to Republican administrations.

“The notion that the White House is beyond compliance in terms of congressional oversight is a new one for Democrats,” said Ed Gillespie, an aide to House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.).

McCurry’s criticism of congressional requests from “overzealous House staff members” followed a House-Senate conference committee’s adoption Wednesday of a GOP-sponsored provision threatening to cut off all future loans and guarantees to Mexico.

The amendment’s sponsor, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), said the Administration was not providing the information Congress had sought on the aid package.

McCurry and Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin said the Administration was complying on the Mexican aid issue. McCurry said more than 3,200 pages of unclassified and 475 pages of classified material had been turned over to Congress on the aid package.

Cox said in an interview that there was wide bipartisan support for demanding that information.

He said the White House let a March 15 deadline for producing documents “come and go without producing a single piece of paper.”

McCurry said congressional requests were reaching avalanche proportions. Small Business Administration officials had been summoned by oversight committees 21 times so far this year, almost the same number as during all of 1994, when Democrats were in control, McCurry said.

“They are really trying to gum up the works,” McCurry said.