CONGRESS GIVES UP ON BUDGET - AGAIN.Byline: Michael Wines The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Still unable after six months of haggling to agree on 1996 budgets for a host of federal offices, including nine Cabinet departments, Congress gave up and went home Friday for a two-week vacation. Before the legislators left, they voted to give another temporary dollop of money to the agencies, enough to last until April 24, and sent the measure to President Clinton, who is expected to sign it. Without the money, the Cabinet departments and other offices, from NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. to the Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), independent agency of the U.S. government, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1970 to reduce and control air and water pollution, noise pollution, and radiation and to ensure the safe handling and , would have had to shut their doors beginning Saturday. The budget difficulties blemished blem·ish tr.v. blem·ished, blem·ish·ing, blem·ish·es To mar or impair by a flaw. n. An imperfection that mars or impairs; a flaw or defect. a week in which the Republican Congress and its all-but-official candidate for president, Senate majority leader Bob Dole, sought to seize the political initiative with a burst of legislation. In a single week, the two chambers sent Clinton an overhaul of the farm-subsidy system, a bill granting the White House a line-item veto over spending, a $600 billion increase in the federal debt limit and a modest regulatory-relief package for small businesses. They also approved and sent to Clinton a politically popular measure raising the amount of money many retirees can earn without cuts in their Social Security benefits. And they passed a long-stalled compromise bill that would limit the amount plaintiffs can recover in some lawsuits stemming from defective products. Several of the measures fulfilled pledges first made in the Contract With America In the historic 1994 midterm elections, Republicans won a majority in Congress for the first time in forty years, partly on the appeal of a platform called the Contract with America. Put forward by House Republicans, this sweeping ten-point plan promised to reshape government. , the Republican manifesto for the 1994 congressional campaign. Some, like the lawsuit bill, face certain White House vetoes. But mere passage allows Republicans to assert that, by and large, they made good on their campaign promises and that the only obstacle to their program was the Democratic White House. ``Dole will try to give the president pitches just outside the Democratic strike zone,'' said Robert Reischauer, the former congressional budget official who is now a scholar at the Brookings Institution Brookings Institution, at Washington, D.C.; chartered 1927 as a consolidation of the Institute for Government Research (est. 1916), the Institute of Economics (est. 1922), and the Robert S. Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government (est. 1924). . If Clinton lets the legislative pitches pass, Republicans will accuse him of passivity, he said. If the president swings at them with a veto, he will be accused of blocking the public will. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a Dole adviser, called it ``a great week'' for the Dole campaign. ``It was a good week for him to display his leadership,'' he said as he bolted the Senate chamber for home Friday afternoon. ``We have to make the argument that there are only two reasons why we didn't get some items: the filibuster filibuster, term used to designate obstructionist tactics in legislative assemblies. It has particular reference to the U.S. Senate, where the tradition of unlimited debate is very strong. It was not until 1917 that the Senate provided for cloture (i.e. and the presidential veto.'' But a long shadow was cast over the Republicans' achievements by their failure to reach agreement - not merely with the White House, but among themselves - on a budget for much of the government. The temporary spending bill passed Friday was the 12th stopgap spending measure in six months to keep government offices from closing. In large part, that was needed because Clinton vetoed spending bills for six of nine Cabinet agencies, arguing that they were too miserly mi·ser·ly adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a miser; avaricious or penurious. mi  ser·li·ness n.Adj. 1. and contained extraneous amendments - on issues like abortion and AIDS and timber-cutting - that the White House could not stomach. The Senate version of the latest spending bill, a catchall catch·all n. 1. A receptacle or storage area for odds and ends. 2. Something that encompasses a wide variety of items or situations: measure for all agencies lacking budgets, eliminates most of the amendments and would give Clinton some of the extra money he has demanded. The problem has been to produce a final bill that would satisfy both Clinton and the more penny-pinching House. The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., issued a flier this week urging Republicans to declare victory and reach an agreement, noting that any compromise will keep domestic agency spending below the Republicans' original targets. Late Friday, Livingston and his Senate counterpart, Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., appeared to balk balk the action of a horse when it refuses to obey a command to which it usually responds. See also jibbing. at the decision to adjourn adjourn v. the final closing of a meeting, such as a convention, a meeting of the board of directors, or any official gathering. It should not be confused with a recess, meaning the meeting will break and then continue at a later time. (See: recess, session) , saying a compromise bill was within reach. ``The fact is, most of the issues in all of the outstanding appropriations bills have been resolved.'' Livingston said on the House floor. |
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