BUDGET - Bill Killers
By David Baumann, National Journal
© National Journal
Group Inc.
Saturday, May 15, 1999
Spring is supposed to be a time for fresh starts,
but as the annual ritual of crafting the 13 must-do appropriations
bills begins on Capitol Hill, the air already seems rather old and
stale. Although these vital bills are always contentious, their
passage has been particularly difficult during the past four years
of Republican rule, and lawmakers had hoped for an improvement
this time around. Judging by the early indications, however, this
appropriations season could be just as troublesome as its immediate
predecessors--and perhaps even more so.
Republican congressional leaders and White House
strategists both vividly remember the federal government
shutdowns of the winter of 1995-96, and they haven't pushed the
appropriations process to such a dysfunctional stage since then.
But this doesn't mean that subsequent go-rounds over the 13
spending bills haven't been messy. Congress has had to pass
continuing resolution after continuing resolution to keep the
government open for business beyond the start of the new fiscal
year on Oct. 1, while key lawmakers and the White House haggled
over funding levels and legislative riders.
Last year, the appropriations bill for the Labor, Health
and Human Services, and Education departments was so freighted
with partisan ill will that GOP leaders didn't even try to pass
it in the House. In October, after six continuing resolutions,
lawmakers in a hurry to adjourn passed a huge omnibus spending
package that few--if any--had read, and that nobody liked.
Members are still uncovering expensive little surprises buried in
that bill.
This year was going to be different. Immediately upon
accepting the Speaker's gavel when the new Congress convened on
Jan. 6, Rep. J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., declared amid cheers from
his House colleagues: ''We have an obligation to pass all the
appropriations bills by this summer. We will not leave this
chamber until we do.''
In mid-April, the House and Senate made progress on that
account by passing a congressional budget resolution that lays
out a framework for the rest of the year's spending decisions.
But, at the insistence of fiscal conservatives, the budget
resolution maintains the tight spending caps that were set in the
1997 five-year balanced-budget deal. That strategy could make it
nearly impossible for the Republican leadership to win support
for the 13 appropriations bills, because the caps could force a
10 percent cut in discretionary spending, a level of pain that
goes beyond the acceptable level for many members.
Nonetheless, as work begins this month in the House and
Senate Appropriations committees on the spending bills,
conservatives are vowing to fight any attempt to lift the caps.
Members of the House Conservative Action Team, called the CATs,
have promised to use procedural maneuvers on the House floor to
block appropriations measures that bust the caps. ''It's easy for
me to come up with 200 amendments for appropriations bills,''
declared Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the head of the CATs'
Appropriations Watch Team, in an interview. ''All I have to do is
open up my file drawer.''
The tightly restricted federal spending levels also
ensure that Republicans, who have only a six-seat House majority,
will not be able to count on Democrats to provide the
appropriations votes necessary to offset their own defections.
''They have big problems on both sides of the aisle,'' said a key
House Democratic aide.
To complicate matters even more, conservatives are
pledging to renew their efforts to attach to the funding bills a
variety of pet ideological legislative riders. Riders are
expected, for instance, on abortion and on the ongoing
controversy over how to conduct the 2000 census. ''Just because
you have a small (House) majority, doesn't mean you don't stand
for the things you believe in,'' Coburn said. ''Our purpose is
not to be disruptive. Our purpose is to get people on the record
with votes. If we win, we win.''
In raising these issues, conservatives are ignoring
the pleas of House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. ''Bill''
Young, R-Fla., who insists that riders dealing with
nonappropriations issues should not be added to his bills. ''I
feel very strongly that an appropriations bill should be an
appropriations bill,'' Young said in an interview. ''I've already
been passing that message on to the members of the committee,
particularly chairmen of the subcommittees.''
Veteran aides on Young's committee are troubled, to say
the least, by the tack that the conservatives are pursuing. ''If
you've got a difficult enough time with the (budget) numbers,''
said one Republican Appropriations aide, ''who would further
complicate this with controversial legislation?''
Moderate Republicans are also worried. ''Living within
the caps will take more fiscal discipline than Congress has
exercised in a generation,'' said Rep. Jim Greenwood, R-Pa., a
key moderate who has fought previous attempts to add riders to
funding measures. ''We're going to have to avoid adding language
that would divide the (House Republican) Conference along
ideological lines.''
House GOP leaders can try to avert fights by not allowing
some of the riders to be offered under the ''rule'' that governs
the floor debate over each bill. But then supporters of the rider
in question will simply try to defeat the rule when members vote
on it on the floor, thus halting further action on the overall
spending bill. On the other side of the Capitol, Senate rules in
the past prohibited the addition of legislative riders to funding
measures. But those rules changed in 1995, and the Senate is
likely to see a few of its funding measures stall thanks to
riders, particularly from feisty Senate Democrats.
So once again, it appears that Congress, and especially
the House, will be a hotbed of fights between the parties and
within them, as the appropriations bills make their way through $
%the legislative channels. Based on interviews with a variety of
congressional sources--most notably key conservatives who have
offered contentious amendments in the past--here are the 10
issues most likely to cause a meltdown this year on the
appropriations bills:
1. Money
Figuring out how to write 13 appropriations bills that
adhere to the strict spending caps isn't the problem: In recent
months, the House and Senate Budget Committees, and a myriad of
off-the-Hill sources, have provided suggestions to the
appropriators on how to do so. The trouble is in getting the
bills passed in the narrowly Republican-led House and Senate and
signed by a Democratic President.
Some of the pressure imposed by the caps may be
alleviated by the approval of the $ 13 billion ''emergency''
supplemental spending bill for the Kosovo mission and other
Pentagon priorities. Those defense needs now will not have to be
provided for in the regular appropriations bills. But that will
help only so much.
According to congressional Democrats, Republicans dug
themselves into a deep hole by passing a budget resolution that
abides by caps that cannot possibly be met. ''The budget process
is so ridiculous that it allows anyone to claim anything, as long
as they lie about it,'' declared House Appropriations Committee
ranking member David R. Obey, D-Wis. The House Democratic staffer
complained of a ''total disconnect between planning and
execution.''
Obey noted, for instance, that the budget resolution
calls for Congress to double funding for the National Institutes
of Health, but fails to increase overall health funding--a
decision Obey claims would force Congress to kill all other
federal health programs. ''That's obviously off-the-wall loony,''
Obey said.
But while Democrats are complaining about the budget
caps, they have not suggested breaking them. ''The Democrats have
not come forth,'' said a senior Republican aide on the House
Appropriations Committee. ''My suspicion is that they want us to
be the first to fall off the caps.''
The Clinton Administration's message on how to deal
with the caps has been somewhat muddled. In February, President
Clinton sent to Capitol Hill a budget that he contended adhered
to the caps by providing offsets for the new spending that he
proposed. The Congressional Budget Office disputed that notion,
and Republicans argued that the offsets that Clinton proposed,
such as a tobacco tax, would not be adopted.
The first indication of Republican strategy will come
next week, when Young tells the 13 Appropriations subcommittee
chairmen how much money each will have for his particular
appropriations bill. Under one option being discussed, Young
would provide small allocations to the subcommittee chairmen
whose bills he knows cannot pass because they always are very
controversial--such as the Labor-HHS measure and the bill
covering the departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and
Urban Development. This gambit would free up funds for other
appropriations bills that Young believes can pass. ''I'm trying
to be creative with the allocations,'' said a senior GOP aide to
the House Appropriations Committee. ''I'm trying to look at
certain bills that we can get out of here, because the leadership
would like to see some action.''
Congressional sources predict that the House can pass
four appropriations bills--those for the Legislative Branch, for
the Treasury Department and Postal Service, for Military
Construction, and for the Transportation Department--that
historically are not very controversial. The remaining nine pose
a serious problem. ''(The GOP) assessment is that they can't
count on much Republican support for the big bills,'' said the
House Democratic staffer.
The Senate Budget Committee Republican staff recently
documented the extent of the problem. If appropriators were to
spend the same amount for the fiscal 2000 appropriations bills
that they spent in the fiscal 1999 bills--excluding emergencies--
they still would exceed the budget caps by $ 10 billion in budget
authority and $ 13 billion in outlays.
Nonetheless, Republican leaders are committed to
staying within the caps, and conservatives are warning of dire
consequences if anyone attempts to increase them. ''I'm going to
be ready for them,'' warned Coburn of the CATs.
2. Automatic Continuing Resolution
For several years a group of Republicans, led by Rep.
George W. Gekas of Pennsylvania, have pushed for the creation of
an ''automatic'' continuing resolution to keep the government
operating if any of the 13 appropriations bills is not passed by
the start of the new fiscal year. Now some Republicans are saying
that they want a provision for an automatic CR tacked onto this
year's appropriations bills--or else.
''If you want conservative support for the funding, we
need to see something like that come out of the bills,'' said
Rep. David McIntosh, R-Ind., the CATs' chairman.
Currently, each CR that is enacted after Oct. 1 is the
subject of House and Senate debate and must be signed by the
President--a process that invites posturing. Republicans believe
that an automatic CR would avoid an October train wreck, and
would force Clinton to negotiate on the regular appropriations
bills in good faith and in an atmosphere of calm, not crisis.
Conservatives, in particular, have complained that their leaders
have made too many concessions to the President during previous
11th-hour negotiations.
GOP leaders have looked favorably on proposals for an
automatic CR in the past, so they may be willing to include such
a proposal in this year's funding measures. But traditionally,
proposals for an automatic CR have drawn vehement opposition from
Democrats and from appropriators.
Under an automatic CR, a preset, across-the-board
formula would be used to determine the funding levels for the
appropriations bills that have not yet been approved. The Clinton
Administration has argued that such a method is arbitrary and
ignores key priorities. Appropriators have similar complaints.
They also fear that an automatic CR would take away the deadline
pressure on Congress to pass the regular appropriations bills.
3. Congressional Pay Raise
Talk of CRs and such may be too arcane to attract much
public attention, but other looming appropriations bill issues
will attract plenty of notice. One such issue is whether Congress
should raise its pay, which currently stands at $ 136,700 a year.
House Republican and Democratic leaders have expressed a desire
to allow Congress to receive a pay increase this year, but some
in the rank and file are already balking.
Under federal law, an annual cost-of-living increase is
automatic unless Congress specifically prohibits it from taking
effect. Traditionally, lawmakers block their pay raises by
offering an amendment to the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill.
Two years ago, GOP leaders pushed through a pay raise by barring
the amendments that would have prohibited one.
Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., an outspoken critic of
boosting congressional salaries, said in an interview that an
effort to block a pay raise this year is ''under active
consideration,'' adding, ''I would expect a broad section of the
membership to have some concerns.'' Coburn, who is retiring after
this session, also promised to fight any pay increase. Moreover,
he said he may suggest lifting limits on outside income as a way
to allow lawmakers to earn more money.
4. Census
Appropriators hope that the leadership can settle the
contentious question of whether to use ''sampling'' techniques in
the 2000 census before this issue can bog down the appropriations
bill for the Commerce, Justice, and State departments. But they
probably shouldn't bet too much on those hopes.
The Clinton Administration has supported the use of
statistical sampling--in which data are extrapolated from partial
counts in selected census tracts--because it says minorities
would be better counted. But a count that boosts the number of
minorities, who traditionally vote Democratic, would give an
important political boost to House Democrats. So House
Republicans, in 1997 and 1998, tried, and failed, to ban sampling
by attempting to attach riders to the Commerce-Justice-State
spending bill, which includes funding for the Census Bureau.
Republicans had hoped the Supreme Court might bar
sampling, but the Court issued a mixed ruling in January. It said
that sampling cannot be used for reapportionment--that is,
determining the number of seats that each state gets in the U.S.
House. But the Court said that sampling can be used for
redistricting--the actual drawing of congressional district
boundaries--and for the distribution of federal aid.
Republicans remain adamant in their opposition to
sampling. ''The CATs will be very vigilant in making sure we
don't sell out on that issue,'' vowed McIntosh. The White House
is equally firm in its support for sampling; Clinton has
threatened to veto any bill that prohibits it.
The issue may come to a head soon: Thanks to the census
controversy, the fiscal 99 Commerce-Justice-State appropriations
measure was funded only through June 15. On the other hand,
Republicans may simply choose to defer settling the issue until
debate on the fiscal 2000 bill.
5. Special Education
Conservatives plan to cause a stir over the fact that
although the federal government has committed to pay as much as
40 percent of the special-education costs of disabled students,
it has never provided the money to back up that commitment.
Currently, the federal government covers only 12 percent of those
costs. ''We're not fully funding that mandate,'' declared
McIntosh.
The House recently passed a resolution stating that the
federal government should devote more resources to special
education. House conservatives intend to make this a major issue
as part of their fight against several education and noneducation
programs in the massive Labor-HHS appropriations bill. They will
attempt to transfer money from programs that they oppose to
special-education accounts.
For example, Coburn said, members may try to shift funds
from the Goals 2000 education reform program--a Clinton
Administration initiative--to special education. Many Republicans
have argued that the Goals 2000 program does not actually help
students, but instead provides money for the educational
bureaucracy.
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman
William F. Goodling, R-Pa., has said he is not certain that the
programs that the conservatives are targeting can withstand cuts.
He has suggested other ways for appropriators to boost special-
education funding. ''There isn't that much money out there that
is available for transferring,'' Goodling said.
6. Abortion and Family Planning
Fights over abortion and family-planning issues have
stalled several appropriations measures in the past, and are
likely to do so again this year. For instance, conservatives
intend to oppose an effort by Rep. Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., to
ensure that most federal-employee health insurance plans that
offer prescription drug benefits also continue to cover
contraceptives. Rep. Joseph R. Pitts, R-Pa., the chairman of the
conservative Values Action Team, charges that Lowey's proposal
amounts to ''federal control of health insurance.'' Last year,
Lowey succeeded in attaching such an amendment to the Treasury-
Postal appropriations bill.
House GOP conservatives also are vowing to try to tack
onto the Labor-HHS appropriations bill a provision requiring
family-planning clinics that receive federal assistance under
Title X to notify parents before dispensing contraceptives to
teenagers. Last year, controversy over the issue kept the House
from even voting on the Labor-HHS bill, but conservatives contend
that the provision is one of their highest priorities.
''If your kid is given an aspirin, you need (to give)
parental consent,'' Pitts said. And Coburn, when asked whether
that contraceptives amendment could once again stall the Labor-
HHS bill, replied, ''The question is: Do you have the courage to
fight for what you believe?' ''
Meanwhile, as part of the Foreign Operations and the Commerce-
Justice-State appropriations bills, Republican leaders are likely
to once again link the issues of dues that the United States owes
to the United Nations with limits on foreign assistance to
international family-planning groups that lobby on abortion
issues. GOP members also may attempt to shift some $ 100 million
from international family-planning efforts to programs that
assist needy children overseas. ''We'd like to use some of this
money to save lives,'' Pitts said.
7. Gun Control
Members from both ends of the political spectrum are
likely to offer gun-related amendments to appropriations bills,
particularly to the Commerce-Justice-State and the Treasury-
Postal measures. Such amendments are always contentious, but
tension over the issue has risen in the wake of the recent
shootings at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colo.
From the Democratic side, Lowey is likely to propose that
gun shows comply with the 1993 Brady law, which imposed a five-
day waiting period during which local police are required to
conduct a criminal background check of a prospective gun buyer.
Lowey also wants to require guns to have trigger locks to protect
children. ''We're not going to let the appropriations process go
by without addressing the gun issue, unless it is addressed first
on the floor,'' said an aide to Lowey.
Conservatives, on the other hand, are raising privacy
issues related to the Brady law. Coburn said there are no time
limits on how long the federal government can keep information
gathered as part of the background-check process. He and others
may seek to require that the data be purged after a certain
length of time.
8. Legal Aid
Another trouble spot in the Commerce-Justice-State
spending bill is the Legal Services Corp. Republicans have long
complained that the agency, which provides free legal assistance
to the poor, has an activist, liberal political agenda.
During the past few years, Democrats and moderate
Republicans have blocked efforts by conservative Republicans to
eliminate all funding for the Legal Services Corp. This year,
rather than trying to kill the program outright, conservatives
are looking to cut its budget, according to several key
lawmakers. And they are armed with recent government audits
showing that the corporation may have grossly overstated the
number of cases that it handled in 1997.
McIntosh calls the debate a ''good-government issue.''
Coburn agreed, arguing that the inflated caseload figures are
''what we've been saying. They're wasting taxpayer money.'' He
added that the program's funding ''has a good chance of being
significantly limited, and it should be.''
9. Global Warming
Although the international global-warming treaty hammered
out in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 has never been submitted to
the Senate for ratification, many conservatives contend that the
Clinton Administration is resorting to backdoor attempts to
implement it. GOP lawmakers may offer amendments to the VA-HUD
appropriations bill, which covers the Environmental Protection
Agency, as a way to address the issue. Said Coburn: ''I will do
everything I can to defeat implementation any way I can.''
The Kyoto treaty requires international reductions in
greenhouse-gas emissions, which are produced mostly from burning
fossil fuels such as oil. Heads of some major industries, members
of Congress, and other critics have issued dire warnings about
its potential effect on the economy. According to McIntosh,
Republicans will lobby for an appropriations rider, similar to
one passed last year, prohibiting the federal government from
spending money on implementing the treaty.
McIntosh also suggested that Republicans might take
further steps to block the Kyoto treaty, although he was not more
specific. ''We may need to add some teeth'' to the rider, he
said. But a key appropriator, Rep. Joseph Knollenberg, R-Mich.,
said he expects Congress to simply continue the prohibition on
spending money to implement the treaty.
10. Senate Democratic Priorities
If Senate Republican leaders do not allow floor votes in
coming weeks on the Senate Democrats' pet issues--including a
minimum-wage increase, managed care reforms, and legislation
providing prescription drug benefits for Medicare patients--
Democrats may try to add those to appropriations bills this
summer.
In the Senate, the rules make it easier for lawmakers to
try such maneuvers and to gum up the works for longer stretches
of time. It is a strategy that Senate Democrats have refined with
great precision during the past few years.
According to an aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who
is the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions Committee, Democrats have given GOP leaders a few weeks
before they will resort to ''guerrilla tactics'' to get attention
for their agenda. ''Unless there are better opportunities,'' said
the aide, ''you can expect votes on those on appro
priations.''
All in all, the appropriations battles are likely to mean
(again) a hot, tedious summer--and maybe fall--for appropriators.
Conservatives insist they will push their pet issues, but say
they realize that Congress will not accept all of their
priorities. ''We recognize we're not going to win everything,''
McIntosh said. Pitts agreed. ''We don't mind a vote on the
floor,'' he said. ''Let the members decide. If they're afraid of
a presidential veto, let's put it before him and see. If he does
(veto it), we can bring it back.''
But even if the questions about legislative riders are
settled, no one is yet predicting how the money problems will be
resolved. Joked a senior Republican aide on the House
Appropriations Committee: ''I think that bake-sale idea sounds
good to me.''
One key Republican, Rep. John Edward Porter of Illinois,
has suggested that Congress and the Administration should agree
on new budget caps now--or risk a repeat of last year, when their
October omnibus funding bill ended up exceeding the caps by some
$20 billion. ''I've been saying for months that on a bipartisan,
up-front basis, we should adjust the caps to reflect reality,''
said Porter, the chairman of the House's Labor-HHS Appropriations
Subcommittee, in an interview.
Porter predicted that unless new caps are set, an end-of-
year budget deal is likely to be hammered out without regard to
any spending ceiling. ''I'm worried that by insisting on the
principle, we're going to lose the war,'' he said.
Despite Porter's pleas, insiders in both parties expect
that the heavy wheeling and dealing on money, and on the
controversial legislative provisions in the appropriations bills,
won't come until fall, when Republican leaders are pushing toward
adjournment.
''Eventually, they'll say, 'We'll do anything to get out
of here,' '' said the House Democratic aide. ''I don't think this
year will be any different than the ones in the past. They may be
willing to stay here for October, but I don't think they'll want
to stay here in November or December.''
Joked the Republican Appropriations aide: ''It's going to
be a big deal. It's like the eighth-grade dance. You don't want
to be the first one on the dance floor.''
