House, Senate closing in on 2000 spending totals

Leadership and appropriations sources Friday said the House and Senate are getting closer to agreeing on a common set of numbers for the remaining fiscal 2000 spending bills, following a bicameral meeting Friday morning of top elected GOP leaders and the two Appropriations Committee chairmen.

Although few final decisions were made, a Senate Appropriations panel spokeswoman said to look for conference reports this week on Agriculture, Defense, Energy and Water, Foreign Operations and possibly Transportation spending bills.

The Agriculture bill is expected to include at least $7.4 billion-the amount provided in the Senate's Agriculture spending bill-in emergency aid to farmers hit hard by the drought. Of that $7.4 billion, roughly $5 billion will be designated as fiscal 1999 emergency funding, meaning that not only will the money not be counted against the fiscal 2000 spending cap, but it will not come out of the $14 billion non-Social Security surplus the CBO projects the government will run next year.

To keep to their pledge of not spending the Social Security surplus on FY2000 spending, Republicans will have to finance all spending beyond the $538 billion budget cap either with the $14 billion non-Social Security surplus or with offsetting spending cuts or mandatory program savings.

But $2 billion to $3 billion of the $14 billion will likely be used to pay for renewing several expiring business tax credits known as "extenders," and another $1 billion will be used to help restore some of the Medicare cuts made in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act.

The remaining $10 billion to $11 billion will have to pay for all emergency fiscal 2000 appropriations; to date, the House has designated $4 billion for the 2000 census as emergency spending, about $2.4 billion of the $7.4 billion in emergency farm aid approved by the Senate will be fiscal 2000 emergency spending, and the administration is expected to request $3 billion in fiscal 2000 emergency money for ongoing operations in Kosovo.

In addition, emergency requests are anticipated for aid to earthquake victims in Turkey, victims of Hurricane Floyd and U.S. participation in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in East Timor.