House forced to defer action on spending bills

After a determined two-day effort by Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to force the House Republican leadership to re-examine its strategy for passing fiscal 2000 appropriations bills under the budget cap, House leaders were forced Wednesday night to defer action on the Agriculture and Legislative Branch spending bills until after the Memorial Day recess.

Late Wednesday, House and Senate GOP leaders were in their second bicameral strategy session of the day, working with appropriators to begin hashing out a workable and budget-conscious approach to the FY2000 spending bills.

The goal, said GOP sources, is to try to bring into line the separate 302(B) allocation packages adopted by the House and Senate Appropriations committees so the two chambers can move forward in tandem on next year's spending bills when they return from the week-long recess beginning Friday.

House Chief Deputy Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said, "The date we are concerned about is the August break date," which House leaders set as their target for House passage of all 13 appropriations bills.

With the appropriations bills shelved, along with Speaker Dennis Hastert's directive to pass three before the recess, House members will have to return to their districts with only the Social Security "lockbox" and Defense authorization bills to tout before their constituents.

Freshman GOP Rep. Thomas Reynolds of New York, for one, was not concerned, saying, "The lockbox is the message to go back home with."

Coburn and other fiscal conservatives have criticized the House Appropriations Committee's 302(B) allocations, saying that while the total amount is under the $538 billion discretionary spending cap for FY2000, the distribution of the money ensures that at least four domestic spending bills will be left hanging at the end of the fiscal year.

And in conservatives' view, GOP congressional leaders would then be compelled to increase funding above the limit in order to cut a deal with the White House and avoid a government shutdown.

In contrast, the Senate allocations provide for slightly more balanced cuts among the subcommittees, cushioned in part by $2.6 billion in FY2000 revenues from accelerated spectrum sales provided for in the FY2000 Defense appropriations bill, which the committee reported out Tuesday.

But House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., when asked whether the allocations need to be changed, said, "We're going to continue the strategy that we've outlined. We are going to continue to bring appropriations bills to the floor and hope that [Coburn] would get this out of his system."

Although House budget hawks do not agree on an overall strategy for resolving the budget showdown, Coburn proposed freezing FY2000 spending for 13 appropriations bills at FY99 levels.

Coburn said that would still leave FY2000 spending about $10 billion over the cap, but that amount could be covered if the CBO increases its FY2000 surplus estimate this summer.

If not, Coburn said, the sequestration of spending over the cap, which the Office of Management and Budget is statutorily required to carry out, should go forward.

Meanwhile, other conservatives are working on new 302(B) allocations that would stay under the cap. The new allocations would distribute the necessary cuts more evenly while still increasing defense spending, according to a conservative GOP source.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., an often outspoken member of the House GOP's conservative wing, said that for him, "The target is to get bills out of the House under the cap."