Budget Bills Stall in Shadow of War

Even as Congress grapples with a potential war with Iraq and creation of a new homeland security department, the nation’s premier deliberative body is making a hash of its more mundane but crucial responsibility: That little matter of keeping the government financed.

The new federal budget year begins Oct. 1, but Congress has yet to pass a single one of the 13 appropriation bills needed to keep government agencies running. The expected result is a year-end scramble that could end up adding billions to an already burgeoning budget deficit.

The fiscal logjam is rooted, in part, in tried-and-true partisan divisions. Democrats want to spend more, Republicans less. But there are extra elements roiling the situation this year: bitter divisions among Republicans and mixed signals from a White House increasingly preoccupied with building the case for a war on Iraq.

President Bush repeatedly has preached the gospel of fiscal discipline, but he signed a $180-billion, 10-year farm bill early this year which critics derided as a budget buster. He also has conceded that budget deficits are acceptable in times of war and recession. And on Capitol Hill, some are wondering whether Bush, as he seeks to mobilize the nation and the world for an assault on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, will want to spend political capital on nickel-and-diming congressional appropriations.

“I don’t think the White House has focused on this,” said Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee. “They are on to the big questions of whether to go to war.”

If Bush does continue to lean on Congress to rein in spending, he may clash with the political needs of fellow Republicans up for reelection. Even true-believing fiscal conservatives can be found supporting crowd-pleasing expenditures, like the $6 billion in drought relief approved by the Senate last week with substantial Republican support over Bush’s objections.

It adds up to cross pressures so complex that many lawmakers predict Congress will throw up its hands before it adjourns for the election campaign in mid-October--and put off major spending decisions for a lame-duck session that convenes after the Nov. 5 vote.

“I see no scenario where we can avoid a lame-duck session,” said Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), another member of the Appropriations Committee.

None of this means the government is going to run out of money or be partially shut down, as it was in the 1995-96 budget battle between President Clinton and congressional Republicans. When the Oct. 1 deadline arrives, Congress will likely pass stopgap funding to keep the government running until the 13 spending bills are passed.

At issue is the part of the budget over which Congress has the most control--the programs financed by annual appropriations rather than by the automatic funding provided for entitlements, such as welfare and Social Security.

Bush has proposed appropriating $759 billion for those programs--up from $728 billion this year--for enterprises ranging from military weapons to education aid. House Republican leaders are trying to stick to Bush’s overall figure, but members of both parties on the House Appropriations Committee are angling for more. And the Democrat-controlled Senate is on track to spend $768 billion.

The process of actually allocating that money has been unusually slow this year. So far, the House has passed only five of the 13 spending bills; the Senate has passed only three. None has been finalized by House-Senate negotiations and sent to the White House.

Not since 1995, when budget disputes were so bitter they prompted the partial government shutdown, has Congress run so far behind.

Intra-GOP tensions have slowed action in the House, where conservative Republicans who want to stick to Bush’s budget are at loggerheads with moderates seeking more for popular social programs.

The big sticking point is the bill that finances the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. Conservatives refuse to vote for more than the $130 billion Bush has requested; moderate Republicans--and Democrats--won’t vote for a bill that does not provide more. GOP moderates are pleading with their leaders that under the Bush budget, college tuition grants, energy assistance and other politically popular programs would be shortchanged, and moderates won’t endorse that, especially on the eve of an election.

“There are some political realities,” said Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-Del.), who has led the GOP opposition to Bush’s budget on the Labor-HHS-Education bill. “The votes just aren’t there. These are issues most of the moderates care tremendously about.”

The Senate’s backlog on spending bills stems largely from partisan divisions over priorities. The disputes have proved so intractable that senators never passed an annual budget resolution--the broad blueprint that traditionally sets guidelines for the 13 spending bills that follow.

In the absence of a budget, Senate Democrats have been free to add more money than Bush requested for various programs, especially for party favorites such as education aid.

“The Senate is spending with abandon,” complained House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). “They are spending like money is water.”

But it’s not just Democrats who are defying Bush on spending constraints. When the Senate passed the $6 billion for drought relief last week, the vote was an overwhelming 79 to 16. The 15 Republicans who voted for it included several senators up for reelection, as well as stalwart conservatives, such as Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho).

Republicans also helped enact the big farm bill passed this year, which essentially repealed past GOP efforts to reduce farmers’ dependence on federal subsidies.

Bush’s budget advisors say they remain committed to holding the line on the president’s spending request. But to maintain that stance, they will have to fight Congress’ time-honored practice of resolving year-end budget disputes by throwing money at the problem.

“The big challenge is to change the formula from spending your way out of town to saving your way out of town,” said Trent Duffy, spokesman for Bush’s Office of Management and Budget.

Bush underscored his determination to hold the line on spending in August, when he announced that he was refusing to spend $5.1 billion of the $29 billion Congress approved in a midyear anti-terrorism bill.

But Democrats argue that the administration has been spoiling for a fight over relatively small amounts to shore up Bush’s credentials as a tight-fisted budgeteer.

Those credentials have been tarnished, some analysts say, by an uneven record of sticking by his frugal principles. Bush initially proposed $190 billion over 10 years for a Medicare prescription drug benefit; then the White House endorsed a $370-billion bill by House Republicans.

When Bush signed the $180-billion farm bill, administration officials said it would be cheaper than letting Congress continue to pass annual farm bailout bills, as it had every year since 1996. But critics said the bill was bloated and its enactment suggested Bush was not serious about fiscal discipline.

“It sends a mixed signal,” said Hobson. “Everybody looks around and says, ‘Does he really mean it?’ ”