The White House Monday sent congressional negotiators a list of budget offsets totaling between $4 billion and $4.5 billion, House Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., reported.
On a day in which negotiations over the fiscal 1999 omnibus spending package accelerated, the Clinton administration sent four main offsets to negotiators, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
The first of these would accelerate certain spectrum auctions. Another would institute cuts in social services block grants previously proposed by the administration. A third would improve the collection of student loan defaults by using more accurate data. Finally, the administration would make changes in certain pensions.
The source said the spectrum sale represents a shift in funds that would have been raised in future years to the current fiscal year. The social services cut represents real cuts, the source said, while the student loan changes would raise money if they result in more repayments. Finally, the changes in pensions represent more of an asset swap, the source said.
The administration also proposed forward-funding some programs, as the Senate did in its version of the Labor-HHS funding bill.
Although some Republicans, including House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, have objected to having administration officials in the room during the talks, Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., said that is a "traditional congressional position." He added, however, that by failing to finish the appropriations bills sooner, Congress has "forfeited its right to have its nose out of joint."
On the status of the remaining outstanding issues that must be resolved before the 105th Congress can be closed out, Obey said, "We still have a large number of issues that divide us." Commenting on the hard line the White House has taken on including its education priorities in the omnibus package, Obey said: "The president is serious. He's going to get these initiatives. We're going to be here until he does."
While Obey said agreement on education is "closer, but not closed," he was more pessimistic about resolving the census issue. "That is farther apart today than it was yesterday," Obey said Monday.
Agreement has been essentially worked out on U.S. contributions to the International Monetary Fund, with an Appropriations Committee source saying just a few words in the reform conditions still must be finalized. House Appropriations Foreign Operations Subcommittee Chairman Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., told reporters he doubted Congress would provide IMF funding "of any kind" in the future beyond the $17.9 billion expected to be included in the omnibus.
Alluding to the fact that the money is conditioned on the president seeking reforms of the IMF, Callahan said, "The changes give the president the power he needs, but with the congressional message that something must be changed immediately."
Mark Wegner also contributed to this story.
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