Brinkmanship on the Budget : GOP slash-and-burn approach pushes the limit

Only two of the 13 spending bills that Congress sends to the White House each year to fund daily governmental operations have been delivered to the President. With the fiscal year closing Saturday at day’s end, a temporary spending measure is needed to avoid a theoretical shutdown of federal operations on Sunday. This is the only budget item that is getting bipartisan support.

On Thursday the House approved the stopgap measure, worked out by congressional leaders and the White House. The Senate is expected to concur quickly and send the bill to President Clinton for his signature before the deadline arrives. The stopgap, known as a continuing resolution, would provide a six-week fiscal extension to allow time for completion of the remaining spending bills. The stopgap also imposes across-the-board spending reductions at agencies during this period. (Social Security checks are not affected.)

HIGH STAKES: There is no guarantee that Congress would make even the Nov. 13 deadline. If recent months are any indication, the GOP majority and the Democrats will be at loggerheads then, too. All this is particularly troubling to the financial markets, rattled when House Speaker Newt Gingrich threatened a government shutdown or default in an attempt to force congressional Democrats to cooperate on fiscal matters.

The political stakes in this year’s budget battle are high for Gingrich and company, intent on balancing budgets, cutting taxes and refashioning Democratic social programs--all in one swoop. The GOP strategy is to do whatever is necessary to achieve those ends. The Senate, for example, postponed action on a spending bill for education, training and health programs after Democrats voted twice to block floor debate on the bill, which is one of the 11 stalled appropriation bills. Congressional Republicans are using the extra time to load up the other bills with bigger spending cuts--cuts that could have devastating effects.

A case in point: the steep cuts in funding for environmental and public housing programs that the Senate approved on Wednesday. This bill, which passed 55 to 45, would reduce Clinton’s request for the Environmental Protection Agency by 23% and slice 16% from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

CHOKEHOLD ON EPA: Within the measure are even steeper cuts in individual programs. One that helps communities provide for the homeless would be slashed 32%, or $360 million, and funds requested by Clinton to help low-income people pay rents would be less than half of what he seeks. The Senate would restrict the EPA’s authority to limit levels of arsenic and radioactivity in drinking water and toxic emissions from oil refineries, and the House has passed a measure that would impose even tougher curbs on the EPA.

The new Republican majority in Congress is ambitious. But its slash-and-burn effort to reduce government is going too far too fast. Its brinkmanship politics appear mean-spirited and divisive. The nation certainly needs to embark on a new course, but one that brings the country together rather than one that pulls it apart.