At a House Interior Appropriations subcommittee meeting Tuesday, Appropriations Committee ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., chastised GOP leaders for "not facing up to budget reality" by insisting on sticking to what Obey called the "fictional" fiscal 2000 budget cap of $538 billion.
Of the $14.1 billion FY2000 Interior spending bill-which the subcommittee reported out by voice vote virtually unchanged-Obey said Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, did "a fair job," although the bill would provide $1.1 billion less than President Clinton requested and $200 million less than in FY99.
But Obey went on to criticize GOP leaders' entire FY2000 appropriations strategy, saying he thinks "this institution is engaged in a huge episode of self-deception when it comes to the caps and when it comes to the allocation given this committee."
Subcommittee ranking member Norm Dicks, D-Wash., also praised Regula's legislation as "overall ... very balanced and fair," but signaled he will seek more funding later for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The bill holds both endowments to their FY99 levels of $98 million and $110.7 million respectively.
The bill, which is scheduled for a full committee markup Friday, contains increases for National Park Service operations, the Bureau of Land Management and Everglades restoration, among other items, while cutting funds for the National Forest Service, energy conservation programs and land acquisition.
Obey also weighed in on the Office of Management and Budget's optimistic new budget surplus estimates, which project a $5 billion on-budget surplus for FY2000 and a 15-year total budget surplus of $1 trillion more than predicted in February.
Obey stressed that "people need to understand that 88 percent of the surplus projected" by the OMB is predicated on Congress keeping annual discretionary appropriations within the budget caps laid out in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. Obey said Congress is deluding itself if its members think they will stick to those caps this year.
Although House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., did not address the issue in his brief opening remarks, his Senate counterpart did Monday evening.
Following the four failed cloture votes on appropriations bills, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said that, in light of the new OMB numbers and the even more generous estimates the CBO is expected to release Thursday, "I have every expectation I will get the money I need to finish the last two bills."
The Senate Appropriations Committee has marked up all but the FY2000 Labor-HHS and VA-HUD appropriations bills, and without additional money for FY2000 appropriations both would have to be cut significantly to stay under the budget cap.
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