White House, GOP Clear Last Hurdle to Budget Accord

The White House and congressional Republicans finally ended their long budget impasse Wednesday as President Clinton agreed to GOP demands for a small across-the-board cut in proposed government spending.

The accord swept aside the last major obstacle to the final budget agreement that has eluded the White House and Congress through almost two fitful months of wrangling, and GOP leaders planned to bring the measure to a vote in the House today.

Potential procedural snags in the Senate could postpone a final vote there until Saturday or later. But the budget’s final approval will clear the way for Republican leaders to adjourn this rancorous and tumultuous session of Congress for the year.

For weeks, Clinton had been denouncing as “mindless” a GOP effort to impose an 1% across-the-board cut on all government spending. But as it became clear Republican leaders were holding firm in their demand for some sort of sweeping reduction, the president and Democratic leaders said Wednesday they could accept a 0.38% cut in exchange for promises the administration would have flexibility in its application.

It was also agreed that the cut would not apply to military personnel, who are due to receive a raise in the new budget.

Review of Bill Will Continue

The budget deal was effectively clinched late Wednesday night, when Republicans and White House officials reached agreement over the specifics of how the across-the-board cut would work. Linda Ricci, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget, confirmed that agreement but said administration officials would be continuing their review of the text of the budget bill.

“I’m not going to say there’s a deal until we have scrutinized the bill language to make sure there are no surprises,” Ricci said. But she added, “If everything holds together, we’re there.”

Republican leaders were confident enough that they plowed ahead to plan for the House action set for today. “We have reason to believe that we will have enough votes in the House and Senate and get it approved by the president,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.).

The spending cut issue was resolved at the end of a long day in which GOP leaders also grappled with a hodgepodge of disputes lingering within Congress over milk price supports, mining and other parochial topics. These squabbles were an emblem of the odd way the protracted budget battle has come sputtering to a close: As negotiators get closer and closer to a deal, the bitterest battles are being fought over narrower and narrower issues.

Indeed, the entire budget deal faced potential jeopardy over the price of milk. Senators from northern Plains states, opposed to a budget provision they think will hurt their dairy farmers, are threatening to filibuster and use other delaying tactics if the offending amendment is not dropped. They may not have the power to kill the bill over the issue, but they can postpone the final vote for days.

Compromise Preserves Key Clinton Programs

The huge budget package under consideration would finance a vast piece of the federal government, including the departments of Labor, Education, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Justice and State. It combines the remaining five of the 13 appropriation bills needed to finance the government through next Sept. 30. The other eight bills already have been signed into law.

The compromise would allow Clinton to continue his signature programs to hire more teachers and police, as well as fund foreign policy priorities that include implementing the 1998 Middle East peace agreement, paying United Nations dues and helping poor nations pay off their debt.

The agreement also gives Republicans their own bragging rights: They forced Clinton to propose offsetting savings for the new spending he sought. Also, as part of the agreement on U.N. dues, the GOP would impose anti-abortion restrictions on U.S.-subsidized international family planning organizations, a goal that has eluded them for years. But their biggest triumph was winning Clinton’s approval of an across-the-board cut.

The fight over that cut ended up being more symbolic than real. Republicans and Clinton went to the mat over the issue even though the original 1% cut would have saved only about $3.4 billion out of the discretionary portion of a $1.6-trillion federal budget. But Republicans clung to it as the most concrete symbol of their desire to trim government waste, even as they crafted a budget that would increase overall government spending by more than $30 billion.

Without an across-the-board cut, Republicans also feared that their claim to have cut spending enough to avoid draining Social Security revenue would hinge entirely on accounting gimmicks and the like.

The impasse was broken after Tuesday night telephone calls by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to Clinton, who was in Turkey. Clinton agreed in principle to the 0.38% cut, but asked that agency heads--instead of being forced to reduce every program by the same amount--be given discretion to target the cuts.

After consulting with Clinton on Wednesday, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said they could live with the 0.38% cut under that condition.

In exchange, GOP leaders agreed to add $100 million for expanding medical benefits for disabled people when they enter the work force. The Republicans refused, however, to accept a last-minute demand from Clinton that they include a provision guaranteeing that any proceeds from the federal government’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry be dedicated to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

The across-the-board cut is just one part of a package of $7.6 billion in spending cuts and other savings put into the bill to offset the spending increases Clinton successfully sought. Other offsets include an accounting maneuver that would postpone by three days the military paychecks due next Sept. 29, pushing them off to fiscal 2001, which begins Oct. 1. The maneuver would “save” $2 billion in fiscal 2000.

As the final pieces of the budget deal fell into place, Gephardt said he probably would vote for the bill--an important sign that it would receive bipartisan support in the House. “I think on balance there is more favorable than unfavorable” in the budget compromise, said Gephardt.

However, the massive bill is riddled with hot-button amendments and spending provisions that could drain support from key factions of both parties.

The anti-abortion restrictions will cost votes among Democrats. Spending increases for social programs could lose votes among Republicans.

“There are a million reasons not to vote for it,” Gephardt conceded.