THE FEDERAL BUDGET : White House, GOP Disagree on Earlier Budget Agreement

It has become a recurrent question in the ongoing budget battle: Did President Clinton pledge in November to provide Republican negotiators with a revised balanced-budget proposal that uses Congressional Budget Office projections?

Republicans have repeated that assertion ever since the White House and GOP leaders agreed Nov. 19 to end the first government shutdown.

The White House, however, has maintained that it agreed to have the CBO analyze the effects of a final, negotiated budget deal--but not for CBO to “score” the administration’s initial bargaining proposals.

A review of the somewhat vague text of the Nov. 19 agreement suggests that no clear-cut promise was made in writing.

“The president and the Congress shall enact legislation . . . to achieve a balanced budget not later than fiscal year 2002 as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office,” the agreement says.

The president and GOP leaders also promised, among other things, to ensure Medicare solvency and “provide adequate funding for Medicaid, education, agriculture, national defense, veterans and the environment” and to adopt tax policies to aid the working poor.

“The balanced budget shall be estimated by the Congressional Budget Office based on its most recent current economic and technical assumptions” following input from the administration and private experts, the agreement continued.

While Republican leaders insist that the language committed the president to submit a new proposal, the White House says that Clinton agreed only to use his original seven-year balanced budget plan--which relied on a combination of estimates from the CBO and the White House Office of Management and Budget--in negotiations with Congress and for the eventual compromise plan to be based on CBO figures.