GOP Considers Selective Funding for Government

Facing the distinct possibility that budget talks with President Clinton will collapse, Republicans in Congress are developing a fallback strategy that would salvage some of their plans to limit the size and scope of government--but without forcing another government shutdown after stopgap funding expires Jan. 26.

The approach they are considering would finance the government piece by piece, resurrecting the programs the GOP likes and presenting Clinton with a series of narrowly targeted funding measures that he might find politically risky to veto.

“We will start picking and choosing those programs which are important to the American people and we will fund them,” said House Appropriations Chairman Robert L. Livingston (R-La.). “If it is not important, it might never be funded.”

Even if it passes muster in the House, however, the strategy could stall in the Senate. Leading Senate Republicans are reluctant to sidestep the traditional budget process, which funds the government through 13 multifaceted appropriations bills rather than through program-by-program funding. Their reluctance to go along could reopen big divisions with more militant House Republicans who are bent on dismantling the federal bureaucracy, not just trimming it.

House Republicans got their way last week when Congress passed two targeted appropriations bills that provide full-year funding for a handful of high-profile, politically sensitive programs such as veterans’ benefits, national parks and law enforcement, while funding much of the rest of the government only through Jan. 26.

Those appropriations bills created the kinds of anomalies that would multiply if, as some Republicans want, the GOP pushes the new strategy after short-term funding lapses Jan. 26.

For instance, those measures provided funding for an elementary school for the deaf in Washington but no money for Head Start preschool programs after Jan. 26. They fully funded loan processing for federal mortgages for single-family homes but not housing subsidies for the poor.

They also provided a full year of funding for the popular Meals on Wheels program to feed the elderly but apparently not for the transportation programs that help the elderly get where the meals are served.

“It appears the [law] will create ‘Meals Without Wheels,’ ” said Fernando Torres-Gil, assistant secretary for the aging in the Department of Health and Human Services. “It’s an example of how it has created a great deal of confusion and complexity for all of us.”

At a press conference Thursday in Seattle, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) made plain what he and other GOP leaders have been suggesting for a while: They do not intend to allow another partial government shutdown after a current stopgap measure expires Jan. 26. Gingrich said that they probably would push another short-term funding measure to give Republicans time to “sort out and get as many of these targeted appropriations as we can.”

House Appropriations Committee aides have been instructed to prepare recommendations on which programs urgently need to be funded.

The strategy is being considered in the shadow of the big budget talks between Congress and the White House, where top officials are trying to reach agreement on a seven-year plan to restructure the government’s fast-growing entitlement programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and farm subsidies.

With many Republicans believing that the budget talks have nearly collapsed, they are turning their attention to the 13 appropriations bills needed to run much of the government in the 1996 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Seven of those have been signed into law. Most others have been vetoed, including the three biggest domestic spending bills that include funds for some of Clinton’s most treasured domestic initiatives.

Those unresolved bills were to fund the sections of government shut down in mid-December when earlier temporary funding measures lapsed and Republicans refused for three weeks to provide more money until Clinton and GOP leaders reach agreement on a broad budget-balancing plan. The GOP drew heavy political heat for the strategy and last week agreed to reopen the government until Jan. 26 by approving stopgap funding.

Republicans now are looking for ways to avoid another shutdown after Jan. 26 without throwing away all their leverage over the final shape of this year’s budget. Another strategy Republicans are discussing that they believe might keep pressure on Clinton is to approve temporary spending measures that ratchet down funding more each month for some programs or agencies.

But House Republicans are pushing harder for the targeted-appropriations approach, which allows them to reshape the government through the power of the purse. The idea is to send Clinton narrowly crafted appropriations bills that would be hard for him to veto and would withhold spending for programs they oppose. For instance, they could send down legislation funding the space agency but not national service and education reform.

“We are going to fund those agencies that we want to fund,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). “Do not expect Republicans to make targeted appropriations for [Ronald H.] Brown’s Commerce Department or Hazel O’Leary’s Energy Department.”

Environmental Protection Agency programs would also be in jeopardy. “EPA would be strictly enforcing some of the major wetlands areas--like the Everglades--but would not be chasing farmers that happen to have cattails in their fields,” said Scott Hodge, a budget expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Democrats, however, are skeptical that Republicans can sustain any such effort. “It’s going to be a lot harder than they think” to pick and choose among federal programs, said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

Republicans got a taste of those difficulties when they produced the two targeted-appropriations bills last week. After passing a bill that would reopen national parks, unfreeze veterans’ benefits, restart passport processing and fund other programs that were in straits, GOP leaders were deluged with requests from lawmakers seeking funding for other pet programs and agencies.

A second bill was whisked through that provided full-year appropriations for programs as diverse as the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, law enforcement at the Justice Department and certain Native American programs.

The piecemeal approach faces rougher going in the Senate, which approved the measures last week despite deep reservations by influential members, including some leading Republicans. Also, Democrats have less trouble offering amendments under Senate rules--so it would be harder for Republicans to limit the scope of the funding.

One administration official suggested that the new GOP strategy also could meet public resistance when taxpayers realize, for instance, that funding has been assured for some elderly services and not for others.

John Koskinen, deputy director for management of the White House Office of Management and Budget, predicted that “at some point what’s going to happen is these anomalies are going to show up and Republicans will see [that] government is a much more complicated operation than they assumed.”