Clinton Signs Measure to Keep Government Operating

Calling a temporary truce in the budget war that has caused two partial government shutdowns in three months, Congress approved and President Clinton signed legislation Friday to keep the entire government operating through March 15.

The stopgap spending bill averts another shutdown of nine Cabinet agencies and dozens of other federal programs whose temporary funding was to expire at midnight Friday.

“I am pleased that the Congress avoided another partial government shutdown and I appreciate its bipartisan approach to this bill,” Clinton said in a written statement.

With both sides bruised from the public relations drubbing they took in the two government shutdowns in November and December, weary lawmakers did everything they could to push the measure through before the deadline.

“All of us want to avoid another shutdown of the government,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.).

One provision of the legislation, included in response to criticism of travel spending by two Cabinet officials, places a ceiling on travel expenses of all Clinton administration Cabinet secretaries.

The Senate approved the bill, 82 to 8, one day after it was passed by the House.

Before sending the bill to the White House, the Senate rejected a Democratic amendment to restore funding for education programs. The Senate also rejected, by a single vote, another Democratic amendment to increase the limit on government borrowing authority and thereby remove the threat of a government default on its financial obligations.

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Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin has warned that the government will default if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling before March 1. But many Republicans have been reluctant to raise the debt ceiling without signs of progress on reducing the deficit.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) earlier this week proposed linking an extension of the debt limit to a limited package of spending and tax cuts. But the White House, despite the accord over the spending measure, gave this proposal a chilly reception.

“It doesn’t look like it’s coming together,” said White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry. “But we’ll continue to try to see if we can explore and see if there’s any common ground on this.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) is also wary of Gingrich’s proposal to link a “down payment” on balancing the budget to the debt limit. “Sen. Domenici is not prepared yet to abandon hope for putting together a seven-year plan,” said a Domenici spokesman. “We ought to investigate every possible avenue before we settle for anything less.”

The bill to keep the government running until March 15 was crafted in talks largely between the White House and congressional Republicans. The compromise gave both sides something to dislike.

It cuts funding for many departments to levels far below what Clinton wants, but Republicans temporarily backed away from plans to eliminate all funds for some of Clinton’s favored programs such as national service and education reform. It restricts funding for international family planning organizations--but not by as much as anti-abortion forces wanted.

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Under the bill, spending for the departments of Commerce, Justice, State, Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs would be set at the levels provided in GOP-drafted appropriations bills vetoed earlier by Clinton. Some programs in the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education would be cut by as much as 25%.

A number of Senate Democrats complained that the White House gave away too much in the deal.

“I think the president made a mistake,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa.). “What it does is put him in the position of not supporting education, as he talked about doing in the State of the Union.”

The vote on the education amendment was 51 to 40 in favor of approval, with many Republicans voting to approve. But the amendment failed because, for procedural reasons, 60 votes were needed. The amendment, by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), would have allowed education programs to be funded at last year’s levels.

Kennedy and others argued that the federal funding crisis has taken a particularly heavy toll on education programs, as schools plan next year’s budgets.

Republicans who opposed the amendment said they might favor easing the cuts in education spending, but that it would come at the expense of other social programs.

The debt limit amendment, proposed by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), was rejected by the Senate on a 46-45 vote. It called for raising the government debt ceiling enough to cover borrowing by Treasury until the end of May.

The provision on travel spending by Clinton’s Cabinet caps travel costs for each secretary at 110% of the average amount they or their predecessors spent on travel between 1990 and 1995. It grants exemptions, however, for the secretaries of State and Defense, the U.N. ambassador and the director of Central Intelligence.

Congressional leaders said that the provision was in response to reports in the Los Angeles Times about high travel spending by Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary and Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown.

On the effort to negotiate a budget “down payment” to attach to the debt limit increase later this month, congressional and White House officials said that staff talks may get underway next week. But some GOP aides said that the first step will be for Republicans to resolve differences among themselves about what would constitute a satisfactory down payment.

Domenici’s spokesman said the senator was trying to convene a meeting next week of Republicans and conservative Democrats from the House and Senate to see if they could craft a new budget plan with bipartisan, centrist support.