Congress Votes Stopgap Funds for Some Benefits

In a bid to limit the fallout from the federal budget standoff, Congress approved stopgap legislation Friday to fund temporary benefits for veterans and welfare recipients and President Clinton signed it into law.

Despite the action, about 280,000 federal employees remained on indefinite furlough because of the budget impasse.

Republican leaders and the president, meanwhile, met at the White House on Friday afternoon in a effort to bridge the huge gulf that divides them on balancing the budget by 2002. After the session, negotiators released a brief, vague statement, declaring that “we had good meetings which built on the progress made in yesterday’s discussions.”

Returning from Friday’s session, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) struck a conciliatory note: “We have a good beginning. We have many reasons to be optimistic.”

But negotiators did not plan to meet again until after the Christmas holiday. Staff discussions are expected to resume Tuesday or Wednesday, while Clinton and congressional leaders may meet next Friday. Most lawmakers have gone home for the holiday but they are expected to return by midweek.

In a major surprise, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) introduced a bill that would deem all federal employees “essential,” thereby returning them to work and guaranteeing their wages through Feb. 1.

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“They’re sort of in the middle,” Dole said of the employees who have been caught up in the impasse. “They’re sort of pawns in this process.”

The Senate approved the legislation without objection. Its fate next week in the House--where the Republican leadership has sought to use the shutdown as a lever in the technically separate, long-term budget battle--was less clear, however.

By some accounts, congressional negotiators and the White House have agreed on settling about $40 billion of their differences affecting energy, banking, civil service benefits and other areas.

These glimmers of compromise came against a backdrop of more than $200 billion in differences on balancing the budget and bitter divisions over how to resolve them. The Republicans want deeper cuts in the rate of growth in Medicare and Medicaid than the Clinton administration. And the administration wants the GOP to scale back its tax-cut proposal.

Following recent White House charges that they were pursuing an extremist agenda, some House freshmen have taken to wearing buttons proclaiming: “I’m a freshman and proud of it.”

“We all stand united,” maintained freshman Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.). “We’re prepared to negotiate any time and any place. But we have to have a budget that’s balanced.”

Both chambers approved funding through Jan. 3 for payments affecting veterans, foster care, welfare recipients and the District of Columbia that were lapsing because of the partial federal shutdown.

While veterans will get their benefits, they will be late. Veterans who were expecting payments on Dec. 29 will receive their checks either Dec. 30 or Jan. 2, officials said.

The emergency legislation did not include funding for nine Cabinet departments and other agencies.

The administration Friday estimated that the number of furloughed workers has ticked up slightly, to 280,000, because leftover funding from fiscal 1995 for the U.S. Forest Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has now run out.

“This hostage-taking is unnecessary,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) of the federal employees who now are caught in the middle of the dispute. “It’s very regrettable for the country.”

One effect of the shutdown is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has not been able to process claims for an outstanding $3 billion in disaster assistance grants for local and state governments, including money for Northridge earthquake victims.

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Clinton said just before the day’s top-level budget meetings that while many of the biggest issues remain, “the process seems to be working and I’m encouraged. And I want to continue . . . until we reach an agreement.”

The discussions Friday began in a meeting among Clinton, Dole, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and a bipartisan group of governors on the subject of Medicaid, the health care program for the poor. The governors came to offer ideas on ways to restructure Medicaid to satisfy the desire to hold down costs, increase the states’ flexibility and safeguard the interests of the poor.

Michigan’s Republican Gov. John Engler emerged from the White House about an hour and a half later, saying that the group “made some progress” and expressing his view that the different parties “are not that far apart.”

Later, after a separate, 45-minute Oval Office meeting of Clinton, Dole and Gingrich, the GOP leaders hurried back to Capitol Hill with no words for reporters as their press staffs crafted an unexceptionable joint statement hailing the group’s “good meetings.”

A senior Democratic aide said that the White House meeting consisted primarily of a report on the minor agreements reached by staff members Thursday, with no movement on the major issues that divided the two sides. Asked why everyone was so upbeat afterward, he said: “That’s what they agreed to say. If people started coming out criticizing each other, it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. This keeps the patient on life support.”

It also made it possible for everyone to go home for a Christmas vacation. Negotiators came out saying that they were not going to discuss what had happened.

“That’s a convenient cover,” the Democratic aide said. “There’s nothing going on. People wanted to get out of town.”