With less than 10 days remaining before the current continuing resolution runs out, appropriators have only five fiscal 2000 spending measures signed into law, a sixth already vetoed, four more conference reports in the pipeline, while the three remaining bills are in various stages of the legislative process.
Already enacted into law are the following fiscal 2000 bills: Transportation, Energy and Water, Treasury-Postal, Legislative Branch and Military Construction, while the District of Columbia conference report has been vetoed. The Foreign Operations conference report is at the White House, where it also faces an expected veto.
The VA-HUD conference report should be filed Wednesday, with an eye to House and Senate floor votes by week's end. Also Wednesday, the Defense conference report heads to the House floor for a vote; the measure should move quickly through the Senate and on to the president's desk for his signature later this week.
The Senate late Tuesday passed the cloture motion to end debate on the fiscal 2000 Agriculture appropriations bill by a vote of 79-20, with 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans voting against the measure.
Among the three fiscal 2000 spending measures not yet conferenced and finalized, the Interior conference committee, which convened Tuesday, was scheduled to resume at 10 a.m. Wednesday and hoped to finish its work before the day is out. White House officials have been actively involved in the negotiations, improving the chances that President Clinton will not veto the bill.
The Commerce-Justice-State conference committee also could be convened this week, after several weeks of occasionally contentious pre-conference meetings between House and Senate subcommittee staffers and the respective chairmen.
The Labor-HHS measure, traditionally the toughest and therefore last bill in the process, remains stalled. Unlike the last few years, the Senate has acted before the House, and last week passed a $93.9 billion Labor-HHS bill.
In the House, the Appropriations Committee has reported out an $89 billion version. But a floor vote has been on hold as GOP leaders have searched for around $9 billion in offsets to pay for the bill without drawing on monies from the Social Security trust fund.
However, their job did get a little easier, $1 billion easier, Tuesday, when the CBO released its monthly budget review estimating that the federal government will log a $1 billion on- budget, or non-Social Security, surplus for fiscal 1999.
The CBO also estimated that the unified fiscal 1999 budget surplus will come to $125 billion.
Meanwhile, Clinton Tuesday sought to stir enthusiasm for offsets contained in his original fiscal 2000 budget blueprint, calling twice for Congress to take a look at his plan to raise the cigarette tax by 55 cents per pack.
He confronted the GOP with what he indicated were the only available options: making painful cuts in areas such as the environment and health care; spending the Social Security surplus "for at least one more year"; or agreeing to his offsets, in particular the tobacco tax and the corporate "loophole" measures.
During remarks before the American Academy of Pediatrics in Washington, Clinton dangled no veto threats. But he argued that the GOP would have to cut 6 percent from domestic accounts if it decides to exclude defense from plans for a possible across-the- board cut, "a huge amount," in his estimation.
As he often has recently, Clinton struck a conciliatory note on the budget, pledging to "put politics aside." He recalled previous bipartisan successes, including passage of the 1996 welfare reform and 1997 balanced budget acts.
Last week, however, Clinton suggested that, so far, this year looks more like 1995, when a budget impasse led to a federal government shutdown.
Jerry Hagstrom and Keith Koffler contributed to this report.
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