Senate Approves Final Budget Bill

The Senate gave final approval Friday to the massive compromise spending bill negotiated with President Clinton, bringing to a close a year of congressional wrangling with the White House and providing both parties with victories they can tout during the 2000 election campaign.

Passage came on a vote of 74 to 24 after Senate leaders headed off an eleventh-hour filibuster that had threatened to keep the chamber in session through the weekend. The Senate then joined the House in adjourning for the year.

The $385-billion spending bill, containing appropriations for seven Cabinet departments, provides money to finance centerpiece proposals of both political parties, from President Clinton’s plan to hire more teachers to a GOP-sponsored boost for medical research.

The money bill was the last piece in a $1.7-trillion federal budget for fiscal 2000 that includes a $17.3-billion increase in defense spending and money to begin paying almost $1 billion in dues to the United Nations.

If Republicans prove correct in their calculations, for the first time in 30 years the budget would avoid dipping into the surplus in the Social Security trust fund to finance some of the government’s day-to-day operations.

The Senate also approved House-passed legislation Friday that would renew a spate of expiring tax breaks and would permit disabled workers to take jobs without losing their federal health benefits.

The bill’s provisions include extending for five years a tax credit for research and development. High-technology firms lobbied hard for the five-year framework; previously, the credit had been renewed year by year.

Proponents of the health benefits portion of the bill argued that the legislation would encourage large numbers of disabled people who had been wary of taking jobs to enter the work force.

Clinton is expected to quickly sign both the omnibus spending bill and the legislation containing the tax and health benefits. The president is traveling in Greece and Bulgaria and is slated to be back in Washington on Wednesday.

California’s two Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, split on the vote over the omnibus spending bill, with Feinstein voting for the measure and Boxer against it.

Boxer said she cast a no vote to protest Republican inaction on key Democratic proposals, such as gun control legislation and reform of health maintenance organizations.

“There’s a lot of things that were lost opportunities--missing, ignored” during the session, Boxer said in an interview.

The gun control proposals and a bill to give patients more rights in their dealings with managed health care plans will be among several issues still on the table when Congress returns to work in January.

Both parties claimed victory in the budget battle, which raged over months of partisan wrangling and culminated in two weeks of intensive negotiations between GOP congressional leaders and top Clinton administration policymakers.

Although lawmakers were late in completing work on the budget--the new fiscal year began Oct. 1--Republicans hailed their effort to wall off the Social Security surplus from other spending as a breakthrough in the way Washington operates.

And while the final calculations may show the surplus indeed was breached by the new budget, the principle of not using the money for other program was embraced by both parties.

“We have established a new precedent . . . that is going to have a big effect in the years to come,” Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said Friday. “Social Security is not going to be raided by the Congress year after year after year.”

Reduction of National Debt Is Targeted

The budget plan also will enable the government to reduce the $3.6-trillion national debt by $147 billion in the current fiscal year, after a $124-billion reduction in the debt burden in fiscal 1999, according to congressional figures.

At the same time, heavy spending by both parties forced lawmakers to breach the congressional spending ceilings that they had imposed on themselves when they approved the 1997 balanced budget act.

Republicans added billions to the administration’s requests and shrouded much of the extra spending with fiscal gimmicks.

The two parties also did nothing to actually overhaul the Social Security system to try to head off the projected shortfall in revenues that is expected to hit when workers in the baby boom generation begin to retire early in the 21st century.

The bill passed Friday contained several concessions to Clinton, including $1.3 billion to continue his program for hiring 100,000 new teachers in the nation’s schools over the next several years. Republicans had wanted school districts to have flexibility in using the money, but Clinton succeeded in keeping it targeted at teacher hiring and training.

The measure also authorizes $595 million for the first installment of his program to hire up to 50,000 more police officers and $1.8 billion to carry out the Middle East peace accord reached last year.

Republicans also achieved some of their priorities in the budget battle. The bill passed Friday provides $17.9 billion for research by the National Institutes of Health on cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. That was $2 billion more than Clinton requested.

In an earlier measure, the GOP pushed through the boost in defense spending, bringing the total military budget to $267.7 billion. The spending includes a 4.8% pay hike for military personnel, effective Jan. 1.

GOP Wins Concession on Abortion Curbs

As part of the deal on payment of the U.N. dues, the White House was forced to accept GOP-sponsored legislation reimposing Reagan-era restrictions on providing foreign aid to international family planning organizations that lobby abroad for abortion-rights laws. Clinton had repeatedly vetoed such legislation in the past.

As the session wound down, both parties managed to put the best face on the results of their compromises, particularly on an across-the-board 1% spending cut that Republicans tried to impose on the administration as a symbol of fiscal responsibility.

Although the GOP was forced to trim back the cut to a token 0.38%--and to give Clinton more flexibility in how to apply it--Republicans praised the reduction as a major accomplishment.

The White House, meanwhile, described the agreement as a “targeted” cut that rejected the GOP’s “meat-ax” approach.

Asked at a news conference how the two sides could both claim victory with the same provision, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) was philosophical.

“That’s America,” Daschle said with a small smile.

The threat of a last-minute filibuster that threatened to stall Senate action on the omnibus spending bill came over a provision that would have continued pricing policies for dairy products that would have favored Northeastern dairy farmers over those in the North Central states.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), leader of the filibuster effort, ultimately backed down on his filibuster threat after Republican and Democratic leaders promised to press early next year for legislation aimed at repealing the dairy provision.

Business, Drug Ties Focus of Measure

In other action Friday, lawmakers sent to Clinton legislation that would make it easier for the government to levy penalties against businesses with ties to drug traffickers.

The legislation, the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, would require the administration to publish an annual list of major international drug traffickers, their front companies and other business associates.

The measure would bar the listed firms from doing business in the United States, cut off their access to American banks and freeze their U.S. assets. It would also subject U.S. firms that work with the listed companies to civil and criminal penalties.

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Times staff writer Esther Schrader contributed to this story.