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Tuesday, October 31, 2000

Battle of the budget at impasse
Decisions could fall to a lame-duck Congress after elections
By Alan Fram
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - House Republican leaders shot down a tentative deal between White House and congressional bargainers on a huge spending bill Monday, ratcheting up their budget battle with President Clinton and boosting chances that it will spill over to a lame-duck Congress after Election Day.
   Clinton said there had been a good faith compromise but Republican leaders "ripped it apart. Why? Because some special interest lobbyists insisted on it."
   "We're not going to get pushed out of town with a bad deal," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., told reporters. "You call it a stalemate. I call it fighting for the American people to get good legislation for them."
   Hastert and other GOP leaders said they were chiefly unhappy with a provision in the proposed compromise - long sought by labor and opposed by some business groups - aimed at reducing workplace injuries.
   But their objections underlined that Republican leaders seem to believe their party's prospects will not be hurt - and may well be helped - by keeping Congress in session almost until the Nov. 7 elections, in which control of both the White House and Congress are at stake.
   The GOP leadership's disavowal of the proposed agreement seemed to dismay at least some Democrats, who had seemed ready to declare victory in the budget war and leave town for the elections.
   "We thought this was a good faith compromise," White House chief of staff John Podesta told reporters. "At this point, I'm not sure where we are. Now I think this whole thing has blown up."
   Looking to score points, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., accused Republicans of bowing to special interests and said, "This is not a do-nothing Congress, this is a dysfunctional Congress."
   GOP leaders have put a $1 increase in the $5.15 hourly minimum wage in a $240 billion, 10-year tax bill. Clinton has threatened to veto the entire measure because he says it is too generous to health-maintenance organizations and doesn't do enough for school construction or peoples' health-care costs.
   In the last 20 years, Congress has held lame-duck sessions four times: for Clinton's impeachment by the House in 1998, trade in 1994, and budget issues in 1980 and 1982.
   For months, Democrats have assumed they would have the upper hand in this year's budget battle because Republicans would be eager to send their incumbents home to campaign and defend their slim House and Senate majorities. Democrats have also said Republicans would not want to battle Clinton, who has stung them in past budget fights, and would want to avoid giving Democrats any ammunition to label this a do-nothing Congress.

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