Congress Covers Its Budget Funding Gap

Congress, moving to avert a government shutdown when the fiscal year expires Thursday, approved a stopgap funding measure Tuesday to finance government operations for another three weeks while lawmakers complete work on appropriations bills.

The continuing resolution, as the measure is called, sets the stage for an end-of-session battle between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House that is expected to culminate in intense negotiations on a broad range of spending and tax issues.

The bill passed the House, 421 to 2, and the Senate, 98 to 2. President Clinton is expected to sign it into law promptly, but White House officials have warned lawmakers that he may not approve another continuing resolution when this one expires on Oct. 21.

All California House members and senators supported the bill.

The stopgap funding measure was needed because both houses are far behind schedule on the 13 annual appropriation bills and will not be able to complete them before fiscal 2000 starts Friday.

For Republicans, the resolution will buy time to help them avoid the trap that ensnared them in the winter of 1995-96, when a budget standoff with the administration led to two short government shutdowns that backfired politically on the party.

GOP congressional leaders already are under fire for reneging on two of three major budget promises that they made earlier this year. They have failed to complete work on the appropriation bills on time, as they had pledged, and they have violated the spending limits that lawmakers set in 1997.

Moreover, while Republicans continue to assert otherwise, nonpartisan budget analysts said that GOP lawmakers are virtually certain to have to abandon a third promise--that they would not siphon off any of the projected Social Security surplus to help finance other government operations.

Although the stopgap funding legislation passed with virtually unanimous support, Democrats assailed Republicans in debate as fiscally irresponsible, deriding the GOP for using budgetary gimmickry to make it appear that Congress is still within its budget.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said that Republicans are “digging themselves a hole that gets deeper and deeper. They made three promises last spring” and are “on the verge of breaking all three.”

The temporary funding measure essentially would extend the current year’s appropriations intact without any of the structural changes that Congress has made in various programs in the money bills it has passed for fiscal year 2000.

Only four of the 13 regular annual appropriation bills have made their way to Clinton for signature, and the White House announced Tuesday that one has been vetoed--the measure providing money for operation of the District of Columbia. The president criticized the bill for several restrictions that it would place on the operation of the district’s government.

The president also has threatened to veto about half a dozen of the spending bills now in the pipeline, objecting to a variety of policy initiatives and funding cuts pushed by the GOP.

Clinton grudgingly acquiesced to the three-week delay. Ultimately, he hopes to force Republicans into omnibus negotiations on budget issues, where he believes he holds the upper hand.

In a precursor to the looming confrontation, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday drafted a $91.7-billion spending bill that would provide substantially more for education and medical research than a House subcommittee approved last week.

The Senate measure would restore some of the cuts the House panel made in Clinton’s proposed education programs--though it would still slash his plan to put 100,000 new teachers into classrooms. It also would provide more for the National Institutes of Health.

But in a move to squeeze the measure in under the congressional budget ceilings, panel members decided to postpone payment of about $16 billion in education grants until a year from this coming Oct. 1--the start of fiscal 2001.

The House appropriations subcommittee employed a similar tactic in the money measure that it drafted for the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. That bill would provide $89.4 billion for fiscal 2000.

The Senate panel’s ploy drew sharp criticism from Democrats. Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the tactic part of a “giant Ponzi scheme--a house of cards that is just about ready to fall.”

But Republicans dismissed the allegations, contending that both parties had used similar tactics over the years. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told reporters that some appropriations, such as grants to schools, are not really needed until the fall.

The Labor-HHS appropriations bill has been especially difficult because House leaders intentionally put it off until last, siphoning off part of the routine allocation for education and health money to use in boosting spending for defense and transportation.

As a result, the subcommittees responsible for the Labor-HHS measure found themselves facing $15 billion in program cuts before they even began drafting the bill.

Times staff writers Janet Hook, Edwin Chen and Richard Simon contributed to this story.