Clinton Vetoes Bill With 1% Across-the-Board Budget Cut

President Clinton vetoed legislation Wednesday containing the 1% across-the-board spending cut that Congress passed earlier this week, paving the way for intense negotiations with GOP congressional leaders in an effort to hammer out a budget for the fiscal year that began more than a month ago.

As Clinton has threatened repeatedly, he rejected the sweeping GOP budget cuts as “mindless” and “misguided” and urged Republican leaders to step up their talks with White House officials.

The 1% cut was attached to a massive spending bill financing the government’s education, health and other social programs. Clinton also objected to some of Congress’ actions in those areas--particularly its refusal to specifically earmark funds for his plan to hire 100,000 teachers. Republicans want to give school districts flexibility in how those funds are spent.

Clinton already has signed eight of the 13 major appropriation bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 but his veto on Wednesday sets the stage for marathon negotiations between congressional leaders and White House officials on the five yet to be resolved.

Lawmakers have indicated that they are eager to adjourn within the next week. The two sides have been bargaining sporadically for the last two weeks but have made only modest progress.

With the negotiations clearly in mind, Clinton laid out a lengthy list of “unfinished” matters on Wednesday--from his plan for hiring more teachers to pending gun-control and patients’ bill-of-rights legislation.

Analysts said that the first clash could well come over foreign policy issues--specifically over a foreign aid bill that Clinton vetoed two weeks ago. Republicans have been crafting a version of the measure. On Wednesday they served notice that, in an effort to win more Democratic support, they would add an amendment providing money to implement the Wye River Middle East peace accord. The omission of such funding from the first foreign aid bill was one of the reasons for Clinton’s veto.

The Republicans also planned to provide $300 million that the president requested for U.S. aid to Kosovo and $183 million for an administration-sponsored program to provide debt relief to poorer countries.

Both had been left out of the initial foreign aid bill.

But Clinton warned that he will insist on more concessions, dismissing the new GOP effort on the Wye River funding as “very good but not good enough.” The money would go to help transfer land on Israel’s West Bank to the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, administration and congressional negotiators said that they have begun to move toward a possible compromise over a second major foreign dispute--whether to provide money for the United States to pay its back dues to the United Nations. But a deal is not in sight yet.

The administration wants to hammer out a compromise on the foreign aid package first to prevent congressional leaders from holding it hostage until the end of the talks. The White House fears that Republicans will blame foreign aid when they have to “raid” Social Security by borrowing from the program’s surplus to help fund the budget, a common practice in past years that the GOP has pledged to avoid this year.

The two sides are only about $6 billion apart on an overall federal budget of $1.8 trillion. Their major disputes are over policy differences, such as whether the money Clinton wants to be used to hire teachers should be provided to states and local schools without strings attached.

There is virtually no prospect that Republicans will be able to muster the two-thirds majorities needed to overturn the veto that Clinton announced Wednesday or any of his previous vetoes.

The bill containing the 1% across-the-board spending cuts, for example, squeaked by the Senate Tuesday by a vote of 49 to 48, while the House passed the measure last week by a vote of 218 to 211.

Rather, Republicans have viewed the measures as negotiating tools, arguing that by passing all 13 appropriation bills and forcing the president to veto some of them, they can limit Clinton’s leverage in the end-of-year bargaining.

Republicans want desperately to avoid giving Clinton the leverage he has enjoyed in previous years, when Congress failed to send him all its money bills, giving the administration more room in which to maneuver when horse-trading on different programs.

Much of this year’s dispute--including the GOP proposal for a 1% across-the-board spending cut--was little more than unvarnished politics, with both sides maneuvering for political advantage in the 2000 elections by blaming each other for overspending.

Almost as soon as Clinton finished his remarks on Wednesday, congressional leaders began preparing for the new round of talks--including a possible extension of the stopgap spending bill that expires Friday. It has kept the government running during the first month of fiscal 2000.