Previous
Congress Approves Budget Deal
Added: (Tue Nov 23 1999)
By ALAN FRAM Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress granted final approval Friday to its grand budget deal with President Clinton and adjourned after a rocky year that began with impeachment, was dominated by gridlock but ended in cooperation.
By 74-24, the Senate sent Clinton a mammoth, $390 billion spending measure that was the product of weeks of bargaining and covered the sweep of government from helping small businesses to maintaining the country's role in diplomacy.
It also contained political victories for both parties, as demonstrated by the lopsided, bipartisan support for the final vote. Republicans supported it by 42-12, and Democrats voted 'yes' by 32-12.
The prospect of an all-night Senate session abruptly vanished after dairy-state senators consented to drop procedural delays that threatened to keep lawmakers working almost until dawn.
"The Senate teaches you patience," said a relieved Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., after the way was cleared for the year's final votes. "If there's anything in the world that's like a good wine, it's the Senate."
In further demonstration of Lott's remarks, the normal 15-minute roll call for the spending bill stretched to 107 minutes as the Senate waited for Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., who had left the capital.
Shortly before 9 p.m. EST, the Senate adjourned until Jan. 24. The House is scheduled to hold a brief session without any votes on Monday, all but certainly its last session of the year.
Senators also voted 95-1 to send Clinton a tax bill, which along with the budget package were the two remaining, high-profile pieces of legislation for this congressional session. Both cleared the House by overwhelming margins Thursday, and the president was ready to sign both.
The huge spending measure would finance seven Cabinet departments and other agencies for the new fiscal year, which allowed lawmakers to finish their budget work 50 days late and shattered spending limits they approved just two years ago.
The measure gave Clinton victories with money for hiring teachers and police officers, buying land for parks, paying arrears to the United Nations and expanding efforts to forgive debts of poor nations.
It let Republicans claim wins by saying they had limited Clinton's demands for extra spending to $6 billion and rejected his calls for higher taxes on cigarettes and other items.
"What we have done is kept the faith with those who want a balanced budget," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M.
The GOP also took credit for higher education spending and for finishing the year without spending Social Security surpluses. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Democrats contest the latter claim, saying the bill exceeds 2-year-old spending limits by more than $30 billion and eats into Social Security's reserves.
The tax measure was a 10-year, $18 billion package extending the research and development credit and other tax provisions. Attached to it were bills delaying new Clinton administration rules for getting donated organs to the sickest patients and extending federal benefits for disabled people who get jobs.
The specter of a long night in the Senate ended after Lott and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., huddled for a half-hour on the Senate floor with Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., leader of the disgruntled senators.
The leaders promised to try changing the way milk prices are set - next year.
"We apparently have common agreement on both sides of the aisle that we're going to work together," Kohl said.
The House completed its legislative business for the year Thursday night, though it held a 26-minute session Friday for speeches.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., finishing his first year in that chamber's top job, took to the well and gave positive marks to a session that he said contained
many victories and some disappointments."
He stood on the same spot where, 11 months ago and in the wake of Newt Gingrich's polarizing speakership, he urged his colleagues to avoid "a pool of bitterness."
Those harsh feelings were only further inflamed by the Senate's impeachment trial of Clinton. And by the time the year ended, both parties' top initiatives had gone nowhere. Those included the GOP's vetoed $792 billion tax cut, Clinton's effort for prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients and both sides' appeals to overhaul Medicare and Social Security.
As it resolved the dairy logjam and hurdled its final roadblock to adjournment, the Senate sprang to life. Until then, its floor was virtually devoid of lawmakers, and it had approved only noncontroversial bills such as one telling the U.S. Postal Service to print stamps honoring holders of the Purple Heart medal.
By voice vote, the Senate sent Clinton a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the coming year. It included language making it easier for the government to seize the financial assets of drug kingpins and their business associates.
It then turned to the spending and tax bills.
The spending measure actually was a marriage of 10 bills numbering more than 2,000 pages.
Five are annual spending measures. The others were a hodgepodge of bills retaining price-fixed milk in the Northeast, the focus of the objections by Kohl and his colleagues; restoring $18 billion in Medicare cuts to hospitals; expanding satellite TV services; revamping the United Nation's spending practices; and other items.
But even as Congress voted, details of the legislative monster were known only to a few lawmakers, lobbyists and others. Because of its length and last-minute changes, the Government Printing Office did not plan to begin publishing copies of it until next week.
Meanwhile, in Athens, Greece, Clinton signed a temporary spending measure keeping federal agencies working through Dec. 2.
It was the seventh - and lawmakers hoped the last - enacted since fiscal 2000 began on Oct. 1.
In other votes Friday, the Senate passed bills that would:
-Require sweepstakes sponsors to make it plain that entrants don't need to buy their products to win big prizes. The sweepstakes bill, passed by voice, is aimed at protecting thousands of people who spend millions of dollars on products, including magazine subscriptions, they don't want or don't need in the mistaken hope they are increasing their chances of winning sweepstakes. The bill now goes to the president for his signature.
-Expand long-term care coverage for the nation's veterans and give a cost-of-living boost to veterans receiving compensation for service-related disabilities. The cost-of-living increase is 2.4 percent, mirroring the annual increase also going to Social Security beneficiaries. The measure now goes to the president for signing.
-Affirm the legality of contracts signed electronically. The legislation would establish a minimum standard for electronic signatures while states work on overhauling their own laws. The House has passed a similar bill and the differences between the two bills must be ironed out next year before it can be sent to the president.
-Put a stop to Internet gambling by closing down
virtual casino'' World Wide Web sites. The Senate previously voted 93-0 to pass the bill, but amendments adopted Friday detail what type of gambling on Indian property would be allowed to continue. The House has not yet voted on the issue.
-Make it illegal under federal law to possess a powerful
date rape drug,'' GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyrate. The House earlier passed a similar bill.
-Increase penalties for the illegal manufacture of amphetamines or methamphetamines that substantially puts people or the environment at risk. The House has not yet acted on this issue.
-Provide government help with housing and health care to youths in foster care programs who have reached the age of 18. Currently about 20,000 foster care youth lose government support when they reach 18 and lawmakers fear too many are unprepared to begin fully independent lives. Differences with a House-passed bill must be worked out.
-Create a new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration within the Department of Transportation devoted to truck and bus safety. It also increases funding to help reduce truck accidents on the nation's highways, which now account for 5,000 deaths a year. The bill goes to the president.
-Make foreign children ages 16 and 17 eligible for adoption if they are adopted together with their siblings. The bill, which goes to the president, amends current immigration law that allows U.S. citizens to bring an adopted child into the country only if that child is age 15 or younger.
-Ban from interstate commerce the distribution of so-called
crush videos'' in which small animals are tortured and crushed to death by women for the sexual gratification of viewers. The bill goes to the president.
-Seek recognition of the baseball accomplishments of
Shoeless Joe'' Jackson, the late Chicago White Sox star who was banned from baseball after being accused of involvement in a conspiracy to throw the 1919 World Series. He performed well in the series and died insisting he was innocent.