House, Senate, brace for budget push

With appropriators determined not to be the cause of any delayed adjournment, this week the real crunch begins for House members and senators slogging through the annual funding measures.

So far, Congress and the president have completed work on only one of the 13 funding bills, the noncontroversial Military Construction measure. The remaining 12 bills are in various stages of the legislative process.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Stevens last week conceded that Congress is likely to need at least a short-term continuing resolution through the end of the first week of October. He said with Congress losing a day for Labor Day and two days because of Jewish religious holidays, a little more time will be needed to finish the funding bills.

In the House, the Rules Committee is unlikely to issue a rule on the contentious Labor-HHS funding bill this week. The rule is particularly thorny because of a fight over federal family planning issues and more talks may be needed this week to help resolve that fight. Once the Rules Committee acts, that bill, which has taken weeks to pass in past years, will be cleared for the floor.

In other appropriations action, no House and Senate conference committee meetings are scheduled for this week, although the Energy and Water conference is in recess subject to the call of the chair.

Informal talks have taken place between House and Senate appropriations staffs during the August break, but no other conferences are ready to meet this week, staff members said.

The House Appropriations Committee is likely to consider the Foreign Operations funding measure Thursday.

That bill has been delayed for months over Republican battles on funding for the International Monetary Fund.

The Senate bill includes the complete $18 billion supplemental spending request submitted by the Clinton administration, so even if the House approves a lower level, a House-Senate conference committee could approve the $18 billion.

On the other side of Capitol Hill, the Senate is scheduled to consider the Interior appropriations bill early this week and could turn to the Labor-HHS measure late in the week.

Meanwhile, House and Senate Republican leaders are faced with another budget question: whether to abandon any attempt to pass a fiscal 1999 budget resolution conference agreement and instead, pass a freestanding tax cut measure.

Aides and members on both sides of the Capitol indicated last week that it is now likely they will give up on the budget resolution and instead, consider a tax bill separately.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., raised an idea with colleagues of meeting halfway between a $30 billion tax cut included in the Senate budget resolution and a $78 billion package to be introduced in the House next week.

That package, to be offered by Reps. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., and Sam Johnson, R-Texas, includes marriage penalty relief, health and education credits and extension of a series expiring tax credits used by business, among other items.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, regards many of these proposals as "good policy" but he may add a few of his preferences when he unveils his own tax bill, if not next week then the week after.

In the meantime, the Senate Finance Committee staff is working on a draft of a tax bill that would likely include the expiring provisions, a 100 percent deduction for healthcare costs for the self-employed and an education provision that would make state- sponsored tuition programs tax-free.

Committee aides say the question of whether such a draft will become more expansive remains an open question.

A spokeswoman for the committee said there are "hurdles in the Senate" because the more generous the tax cut, the more it would be necessary to get into controversial offsets or using the budget surplus. "We need to get a feeling whether that is a possibility," she said.