$500-Billion Budget Accord Is Reached

By JANET HOOK

Oct. 16, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

White House and congressional leaders Thursday reached a long-delayed agreement on a $500-billion budget, a monumental bill that provides overdue funding for the government, surprise bragging rights for President Clinton and a ticket home for members of Congress to campaign in this fall’s high-stakes election.

The budget accord, expected to be approved by the House and Senate today, is the legislative capstone of a year when there were few towering achievements in Congress to rival the vote to open an impeachment inquiry stemming from Clinton’s relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky.

The agreement would give Clinton $1.1 billion for his signature initiative to reduce school class sizes through the hiring of more teachers, would authorize new money that he sought for the International Monetary Fund and would drop many of the GOP proposals he opposed as harmful to the environment.

The new education money was welcomed by California officials who already are trying to reduce class sizes in the state. And increased funding for anti-drug efforts is expected to help the state’s efforts to stem the flow of narcotics across the Mexican border.

Some conservative Republicans complained that the deal conceded too much to Clinton, and threatened to vote against it. But GOP leaders touted the bill’s Republican-backed provisions that would boost Pentagon spending, guarantee that local school districts have a say over how the new education money is spent and impose new reforms on the way the IMF operates.

“I think we have a package here that’s good for the American people,” said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). “It is not a question of who won and who lost.”

Major Agendas Got the Ax

Major elements of the agendas fought for by both sides, such as Republican hopes for a big tax cut and Clinton’s proposed program to aid school construction, died as the bill was pieced together. But the opponents agreed that those issues will be fodder in the coming campaign.

“We can now go out and have a great national debate about that,” said Clinton, hailing the agreement from the White House lawn.

And heading into that campaign, the budget deal would seem to provide important political benefits to both Democrats and Republicans.

For Clinton, the deal has succeeded in shifting much of the public focus--at least for now--from last week’s House vote to open an impeachment inquiry. Democrats facing reelection in less than three weeks were gleeful that the last word from this Congress will be about the policy differences between the two parties, not about Clinton’s misdeeds.

The budget bill gives Republicans new ammunition to use against charges that this year has been a do-nothing Congress. After passing a landmark budget-balancing agreement and tax cut in 1997, Republicans have been criticized for producing few new legislative accomplishments.

The budget deal contains routine funding for scores of government agencies, but it also became the vehicle for reviving a host of unrelated legislative initiatives. These include a measure heavily promoted by high-technology companies to increase immigration ceilings for high-tech workers and a GOP-backed ban on pornography on the Internet.

Details of Spending Plan

Exact figures for most of the bill were not available Thursday but the total was estimated to be about $500 billion. That includes $20.4 billion in funding for emergency expenditures, including:

* $6.4 billion for improving military readiness and for U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia.

* $2.4 billion for anti-terrorism initiatives, including improvement of embassy security in the wake of the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa this summer.

* $3.4 billion to remedy the year 2000 glitch in government computers.

* $5.9 billion for farmers hard hit by this year’s sagging agricultural economy.

* $690 million for the anti-drug initiative that was a top GOP priority.

Among the many initiatives piggy-backed onto the package at the last minute was a modest package of tax relief, a pale shadow of the $80-billion tax cut that passed the House last month, only to die in the Senate. The stripped-down bill, worth $9.2 billion over 10 years, would extend several expiring tax breaks and provide modest new breaks to help farmers and small businesses.

Clinton claimed his biggest victory in the bill’s education provisions. Republicans agreed to include the $1.1 billion Clinton sought for the hiring of what the administration hopes eventually will be as many as 100,000 new teachers. But the White House will have to fight in future years for more funds to achieve this goal--the $1.1 billion, officials said, is expected to add about 30,000 new teachers this fiscal year.

Republicans also left their party’s imprint on the proposal by insisting that local school districts have some flexibility in spending the money.

In California, the new federal funds could give a shot in the arm to recent state efforts to reduce class sizes. One popular state program begun in 1996 limits class size from kindergarten through third grade to 20 students. A similar initiative launched this year will cut class size for many students in ninth grade.

“It would be welcome,” Doug Stone, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said of the prospect of additional federal funds. “Not only will we take it, we’ll say thank you.”

The budget deal also granted Clinton’s requests in a number of other education and training programs, including after-school grants, Head Start and summer jobs. However, Republicans refused to go along with his plan to subsidize nearly $22 billion in bonds to build new schools and renovate existing ones. The deal also blocks another major Clinton initiative--his plan to develop voluntary national tests for math and reading.

One of the last issues to be settled by negotiators was funding for the 2000 census, hung up over whether the Census Bureau would be allowed to use statistical sampling to enhance the accuracy of its head count. The budget deal essentially would postpone settlement of the dispute until after the Supreme Court rules in a case on the issue, which is expected early next year. The compromise calls for funding the Commerce Department--which oversees the Census Bureau--through June 15. This also affects funding for the Justice and State departments, because they are covered by the same appropriations provision.

Negotiators dropped a number of amendments opposed by Clinton on environmental grounds, including a plan to build a road through a wilderness refuge to connect two remote communities in Alaska. As a compromise, the deal calls for building the road on an alternative route across private land.

Clinton claimed victory on the environmental front, but the accord included some provisions troubling to some environmentalists, including one that would block more stringent vehicular fuel efficiency standards.

The bill also includes the $18 billion Clinton sought for the IMF to help the agency stabilize the shaky international economy. But it came with GOP-demanded conditions attached that the IMF make its operations more open and its lending practices less risky.

The sheer magnitude of the bill is daunting and some lawmakers on Thursday complained that they will have little time to digest the thousands of pages produced in closed-door talks between a handful of top officials. Democrats were demanding at least 24 hours to read the bill before voting on it, which could mean that it would not come to a vote until this weekend, a GOP aide said.

But lawmakers are eager to leave town, and congressional leaders confidently predicted the budget’s passage by wide margins. For instance, Laura Nichols, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) predicted that substantial numbers of Democrats would vote for the bill.

The bigger question is how many Republicans will back the measure. Rep. David M. McIntosh (R-Ind.), a conservative leader, proclaimed the deal “a bad bill for the American people” because it includes no major tax cut and spends $20 billion from projected budget surpluses.

Gingrich has mounted a concerted effort to persuade conservatives that the agreement is not capitulation on the part of the GOP. After McIntosh scheduled a news conference to announce his opposition to the deal, Gingrich urged him to withhold judgment until the speaker has a chance to make a personal pitch for it.

Times staff writers Nick Anderson in Los Angeles and James Gerstenzang and Elizabeth Shogren in Washington contributed to this story.

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Scorecard on the Budget

As Congress prepares to adjourn, both President Clinton and Republican leaders ended up with a mixed record in achieving their legislative wish lists. Here’s how the major items on the agendas fared:

* Clinton

New money to hire teachers to reduce class size: Yes

Patients’ bill of rights: No

Comprehensive tobacco regulation: No

Increased farm aid: Yes

Tax cut for school construction: No

Additional funding for the International Monetary Fund: Yes

New investments in child care: No

New clean water initiative aimed at rivers, lakes and coastal waters: Yes

* Republicans

Large tax cut drawn from budget surplus: No

Funding toward a national missile defense system: Yes