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Document 109 of 191.

August 29, 1999, Sunday

SECTION: Editorial; Ed. Final; Pg. 2B

LENGTH: 653 words

HEADLINE: CONGRESS FUDGES THE RULES AND BUSTS THE BUDGET CAPS

BYLINE: Linda Seebach

BODY:
Unauthorized appropriations.

Sounds as if it ought to be an oxymoron, but in fact it refers to a favorite spending game in Congress, played to the tune of nearly $101 billion in fiscal year 1999.

Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo, who stopped by the News last week, explained how it works. Every summer, before the fiscal year begins Oct. 1, Congress must enact 13 appropriations bills that establish how much the government will spend on discretionary programs for the coming year. During the House debate on each bill, members can object if money is appropriated for programs whose authorization has expired, or for spending that never was authorized - called, naturally, unauthorized appropriations. It's a point of order, and automatic. But then the bill goes to conference committee with the Senate, and the House Rules Committee can waive the rule against unauthorized appropriations if they come out of conference committee.

Guess what happens.

When the bill comes back to the House for a final vote, it's a straight up-or-down vote. The bills have to pass - as Tancredo has observed, the Republicans are terrified that they'll be accused of ''shutting down the government'' again - so the game goes merrily on.

Not that the Republicans invented it. For the 1999 list, Tancredo referred me to the Congressional Budget Office website, cbo.gov. The CBO overview explains that its annual list of unauthorized appropriations is a requirement of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act - of 1985.

The CBO report actually understates how much congressional spending goes this route. It doesn't deal with mandatory programs whose original authorization law allows them to go straight to the budget every year without passing Congress. Such programs, which include the big entitlements, account for more than half of federal spending.

The report doesn't include programs that never have been specifically authorized because they're considered an integral part of a cabinet department's functions. Tancredo mentioned the Internal Revenue Service.

Finally, the report lists, without dollar amounts, many programs that are ''funded at an unidentified level in a large appropriation account.'' If the agency running the program can't tell the CBO how much is alllocated to it, the CBO report lists the amount as ''not available.''

And it still adds up to $101 billion.

It's not that these are all unreasonable things for the government to be doing. ''Some of these are things we like,'' Tancredo conceded.

One of them is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, last authorized in 1993 but still getting $13 billion a year. I like NASA.

Legal Services Corporation? Last authorized 1979, $300 million in 1999. The National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities? Last authorized 1993, $208.7 million in 1999. Corporation for Public Broadcasting? Last authorized 1996, $340 million in 1999.

They all have their defenders, and if they have a majority in Congress as well, good for them. But if the only way they can continue to get funding is to circumvent a vote in Congress, they shouldn't be funded.

About 40 representatives who call themselves the Conservative Action Team (a counterweight to the Republican centrists who call themselves the Tuesday Lunch Bunch) have jointly signed a letter asking the Rules Committee to end its routine waivers.

Also, there are two of this year's 13 appropriations remaining, and Tancredo said he and other CATs will move to strike unauthorized appropriations.

''Next year,'' he promises, ''every single time.''

The reauthorization process is the only time Congress really gets to debate the merits of a law. Some laws, the CBO says, prohibit extending a program simply by giving it more money. That should be the standard. But until it is Congress should at least stop fudging the rules.

NOTES:
COLUMN
Linda Seebach is an editorial writer for the News. She can be reached at (303) 892-2519 or seebach@denver-rmn.com by e-mail.

LOAD-DATE: September 1, 1999

Document 109 of 191.


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