House Approves Budget Bill as Both Sides Claim Credit

The compromise year-end spending bill worked out by Republican leaders and the White House sailed through the House on Thursday, paving the way for a Senate vote on Saturday that would enable Congress to adjourn for the year.

The $385-billion measure was approved on a vote of 296 to 135, winning clear majorities in both parties.

The House also approved separate legislation that would extend several tax breaks and would permit disabled people to take jobs without losing their federal health benefits. It then voted to adjourn as soon as the Senate completes its work.

President Clinton and congressional leaders of both parties praised the budget measure as historic, claiming major victories on their key political goals, ranging from education and medical research to defense and foreign aid.

Clinton, in Turkey to attend a conference on European security, called the budget compromise a “hard-won victory for the American people,” adding: “This is what we have achieved, and we have done so by working together.”

Republicans boasted that the bill lived up to their promise to end a 30-year-old practice of using surpluses from the Social Security trust fund to finance day-to-day government operations.

Some budget analysts were skeptical that such a goal would actually be achieved once the precise effect of the budget compromise is calculated. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to compile estimates on that in the next few days.

There was no doubt, however, that the push to avoid dipping into the Social Security surplus marked a significant shift in the government’s approach to budget policy. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said the GOP had “stopped the raid on Social Security.”

The sweeping legislation contains annual appropriations for seven Cabinet departments--covering education, health, labor, law enforcement and foreign aid. In many cases, the bill provides more money for specific programs than Clinton requested.

It also would reverse cuts in Medicare services that Congress approved last year, which would have squeezed nursing homes, physical therapy providers, teaching hospitals and providers of outpatient and home care services. The cuts had provoked a sharp protest by the health care industry.

At the same time, Republicans forced the administration to agree to a modest 0.38% across-the-board spending cut that will affect virtually all departments and agencies, including those funded by bills that Congress previously passed. The cuts will be decided by agency heads and Cabinet officers.

Approval of the compromise measure capped a year of fierce, intensely partisan wrangling that delayed passage of many of the 13 annual appropriation bills well into the new fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. The total federal budget amounts to $1.7 trillion.

Republicans, fearful of provoking a government-wide shutdown similar to those in 1995 and 1996, have been keeping the government running on a series of temporary spending bills, including a new one approved Thursday.

In the House vote on the budget bill, 170 Republicans and 125 Democrats--along with Rep. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, the House’s lone independent--voted for it. Voting against it were 51 Republicans and 84 Democrats.

Those opposing the bill included six Republicans and eight Democrats among California’s 52-member House delegation.

The California Republicans voting no were Reps. Tom Campbell of San Jose, Christopher Cox of Newport Beach, John T. Doolittle of Rocklin, Richard W. Pombo of Tracy, Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach and Edward R. Royce of Fullerton.

The Democrats voting no were Reps. Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles, Gary A. Condit of Ceres, Bob Filner of San Diego, George Miller of Martinez, Grace F. Napolitano of Norwalk, Loretta Sanchez of Garden Grove, Pete Stark of Hayward and Maxine Waters of Los Angeles.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) did not vote because of a family medical problem, her office said.

Senate action on the budget bill was delayed because of a filibuster mounted by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) to protest a provision to change pricing regulations for the dairy industry to favor dairy farmers in the Northeast at the expense of those in the Midwest.

Although Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) moved Thursday night to choke off the filibuster, under Senate rules Kohl is permitted to continue his delaying tactic for 30 hours. As a result, the Senate now will end up voting on the bill Saturday.

As this final skirmish in the budget battle played out, both sides could claim victories.

Clinton won his bid for money for programs to let communities hire 100,000 teachers and 50,000 police officers over the next several years.

He also won approval for money to help carry out last year’s Middle East peace accord and to pay almost $1 billion in dues that the United States owes the United Nations. Failure to pay would have cost the United States its vote in the U.N. General Assembly.

Republicans succeeded in boosting defense spending to improve troop readiness and provide a 4.8% military pay hike. They also provided more money than Clinton sought for education and medical research. And they reimposed Reagan-era limits on aid to international family planning groups that lobby for abortion rights.

But both sides suffered some significant setbacks. Republicans rebuffed Clinton’s plan to impose new taxes on the tobacco industry and defeated Democratic attempts to tighten gun controls, increase the minimum wage and pass a bill of rights for patients.

Clinton, meanwhile, thwarted with his veto a 10-year $792-billion tax cut that had been the GOP’s major agenda item before the push to protect the Social Security trust fund. He also beat back a GOP effort to relax several environmental regulations.

Moreover, both sides relied on a number of fiscal gimmicks to bring the budget technically into balance, from deferring some outlays into the next fiscal year to classifying ordinarily routine expenditures as “emergencies,” making then exempt from spending limits lawmakers had pledged to uphold.

The tax breaks that the House voted to extend include a tax credit for research and experimentation sought by high-technology firms. The credit was continued for five years. Also renewed was a tax credit for firms that hire hard-to-employ people, such as former welfare recipients.

Times staff writers Janet Hook, Nick Anderson and Richard Simon contributed to this story.