Why were these people smiling?

Other than sheer relief, why was anyone on Capitol Hill and at the White House celebrating the agreement on the omnibus appropriations bill last week? The pact that was announced with such fanfare is really a substantial budget failure. Here's why:

• The 13 fiscal 1999 appropriations bills were supposed to be enacted by Oct. 1. Therefore, rather than being a sign of success, the agreement on an omnibus appropriation bill was at least a double failure. First, it was the obvious result of Congress not completing work on the spending bills by the start of the fiscal year. Second, even the stop gap legislation was not adopted by the Oct. 1 deadline.
• This was not a "budget deal" as everyone involved in the process claimed with great fanfare. Instead, it was little more than some standard, has-to-be-passed, annually required legislation that everyone knew would eventually be adopted in some form and at some time.
• Unlike the 1990, 1993 and (to a lesser extent) 1997 budget agreements, which were departures from existing spending and taxing policy and required tough votes, this was really just a continuation of what was already in place and required virtually no political courage.
• This also was not a budget deal because the agreement dealt almost exclusively with appropriations, which are only about one-third of the budget. Calling the omnibus spending bill a budget agreement seriously overstates its importance.
• Calling it a budget deal at all masks one of Congress's biggest overall failures this year-its inability to pass a budget resolution. This is the first time since the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 created budget resolutions that Congress will not have agreed on one.

  (Special note to those who think Budget Battles picks on Congress too much. The fiscal 1999 budget resolution did not founder because of a veto, either real or threatened. Instead, House and Senate budget conferees could not agree on a compromise and the president, who does not sign budget resolutions in any case, had no role in its demise. Therefore, Congress's failure to adopt a budget resolution rests solely in its hands.)

• The $20 billion or so in "emergency" spending included in the agreement was a significant departure from the budget discipline adopted in the 1997 budget deal. There was virtually no attempt by anyone take issue with the wholesale expansion of the definition of emergency-let alone object to the specific items that were so obviously misclassified.
• Ominously, the extensive use of the emergency exception to the caps was among the most bipartisan aspects of the agreement. Once the door was opened, Democrats and Republicans, leadership and rank and file, conservatives and liberals, and the White House and Congress all walked through it arm-in-arm. This creates very serious doubts about whether the caps, which only get tighter through fiscal 2002, will hold in the years ahead and, therefore, how much longer the current budget process will provide any real discipline.
• In spite of all protests to the contrary, the emergency spending will reduce the fiscal 1999 surplus compared to what it would otherwise have been. That is the essence of the emergency exception-it allows spending to be higher than it would be. Without other discretionary outlay cuts to offset the so-called emergency increases, spending has to be higher than the caps and, therefore, the surplus smaller.
• This is the second year in a row that a budget agreement will have made things worse in the short-term rather than better. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the 1997 budget deal decreased the fiscal 1998 surplus deficit by about $21 billion compared to what otherwise would have occurred. Instead of the approximately $71 billion surplus that has been tentatively reported, the fiscal 1998 budget would have had a more than $92 billion surplus had it not been for the spending and tax policies included in the agreement.

And The Nominees Are...

Cast Your Vote Today For The 1998 'Black Ink Award' For the past four weeks Budget Battles readers have been nominating their choice for the first annual "Black Ink Award," which National Journal's Cloakroom will give each year to the person or organization its readers say had the most positive impact on that year's budget debate.

In alphabetical order the nominees are: President Clinton, the Concord Coalition, Alan Greenspan, Rep. John Kasich, Rep. Robert Livingston, and Rep. Charles Stenholm. All votes must be received by Nov. 15, 1998. Click here to e-mail your vote for one of the nominees.

Question Of The Week

Last Week's Question. The Treasury will not release the official fiscal 1998 surplus until later this week, so the winner to last week's question will not be known until then and will be included in next week's Budget Battles. However, with Congress and the president finally putting together a fiscal 1999 omnibus spending agreement, the winner of the previous week's question can be revealed. Congratulations to Kori Hardin of Rep. David Obey's office, who was the first to respond with the correct answer that the legislation would include eight fiscal 1999 appropriations, with five enacted as separate bills. Kori gets an "I Won A Budget Battle" T-shirt to wear over a turtleneck now that the weather is turning cold.

This Week's Question. Are you frustrated by Congress and the president's continuing inability to get all appropriations enacted by the start of the fiscal year? If so, here is your chance to fix the problem and get your own "I Won A Budget Battle" T-shirt in the process. What would you do to make continuing resolutions or omnibus appropriations bills unnecessary? (As one BB reader suggested several months ago, how about turning off the air conditioning in congressional office buildings during the summer if budget process deadlines are missed?) Send your creative, serious or whimsical ideas to scollender@njdc.com.