Highlighting his education proposal as an initiative jeopardized by congressional Republicans' spending plans, President Clinton today Friday the Senate's fiscal 1999 budget resolution--passed Thursday night--as a plan that would "squeeze out critical investments in children."
Less than 12 hours after returning from a trip to Africa, the president--accompanied by Vice President Al Gore, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and other top economic policy advisers--appeared at the White House to list the key parts of his education proposal that he said would be imperiled. The list included class size reduction, the hiring of 100,000 new teachers, modernization efforts "to make classes smaller and schools safer," and new performance standards in schools. He also added spending on scientific research to the list.
"The budget now being drafted by Congress simply does not meet these urgent national priorities," Clinton said.
In addition, the President expressed reservations about the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act reauthorization bills passed by the Senate and House, saying that "highway spending, though important, must be within the balanced budget and should not crowd out critical investments in education, child care [and] health care."
However, the president issued no veto threats and said he looked "forward to working with Congress" to maintain fiscal discipline while allowing "targeted investment." Congress did receive one presidential pat on the back, as Clinton said he is "pleased that members of Congress of both parties have joined my call to reserve every penny of the surplus until we save Social Security first. This is very significant."
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., defended the budget resolution, saying it would balance the budget early and cut taxes while setting aside funds for saving the Medicare program.
"We are committed to staying with the budget agreement and to staying within the caps," Lott told reporters.
He touted the three Democratic votes for the plan, saying it passed Thursday night with a "bipartisan margin." And Lott reiterated the promise GOP leaders made to conservatives to increase tax cuts beyond the $30 billion in the Senate plan. Lott also said the plan would set aside the surplus for Social Security and left open the possibility part of it could be used for individual retirement accounts to supplement Social Security.
Responding to President Clinton's criticism, Lott said the budget does provide sufficient funding for education. "He needs to check his figures before he starts complaining," Lott said. But he added: "We have our priorities. He has his priorities."
Lott also sought to calm fears that the reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act would bust the budget. He noted that the Senate Budget Committee will be represented on the ISTEA conference committee, adding that if offsets are not found for all the spending in the highway bill, spending would have to be decreased. And he said one of the offsets for the highway bill should come from the food stamp administrative budget. Conferees on an agriculture research bill planned to use those funds for their legislation. "I think that money should go to the highway bill," Lott said.
He also said the agriculture bill would pass. "We'll get the job done, but probably not the way it came out of conference," he said.
In a related development, 34 Democratic and Republican House members this week sent House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and Clinton a letter urging them to resist the temptation to relax budget enforcement mechanisms to allow more spending or to cut taxes.
"Proposals for tax cuts or increased spending that have merit can and should be funded within the discipline of the budget agreement," the House members wrote.
They said exempting certain spending programs from budget enforcement, relaxing rules to allow a surplus to pay for a tax cut or spending and proposals to break down the wall between discretionary spending and revenues "will lead quickly down a slippery slope to fiscally irresponsible legislating."
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