Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 2, 1995 TAG: 9503020067
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The decision came after a day of partisan finger-pointing as Republicans failed to win the one additional convert they need to pass the measure.
The mood on Capitol Hill was ugly after Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas put off a scheduled roll-call vote Tuesday night when supporters were one short of the 67 votes needed for passage.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., liars.
Dole, rankled by Sen. Robert Byrd's, D-W.Va., complaint of a ``sleazy and tawdry'' double-cross by Dole, threatened to invoke a little-used rule against Byrd for indecorous behavior.
The sides' main sticking point was whether surplus funds in the Social Security system should be counted when the government calculates the budget deficit.
Democrats led by Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota say they will oppose the amendment unless Republicans agree to make it force Congress to quit counting the multibillion-dollar Social Security surpluses against the decifit.
Counting the surpluses, they said, masks the true size of the government's operating shortfall, and could tempt future budget-cutters to pare benefits.
Republicans have refused to revise the proposed amendment, but promised to pass a companion bill to put the Social Security trust fund off-budget after 2006.
Unless some minds change overnight, the amendment - which would require a balanced federal budget by the year 2002 - will remain one vote shy of adoption.
In that case, said Dole, he will move to bring it up again later, perhaps a few weeks before the 1996 congressional elections after the GOP, sympathetic talk-radio programs and ad campaigns have softened up opposition Democrats.
``We may even win if we lose," Dole said. "If we lose, we'll take the issue to the American people.''
The House passed the balanced-budget amendment last month, 300-112. Thirty-eight states would have to ratify it before it became part of the Constitution.
Wednesday got off to a high-octane start when Gingrich, at a news conference, said Feinstein and Daschle, the Senate minority leader, had lied to voters in re-election campaign claims last fall that they supported the amendment. Both Democrats had been set to vote against it Tuesday, although they had voted for an almost identical amendment in Congress' last session.
Feinstein said Gingrich's comment was "inappropriate and counterproductive.'' Daschle said he was ``disappointed'' by Gingrich's remark. ``In the Senate, we learn to disagree without being disagreeable.''
Daschle maintained ``the real issue'' was ``telling the truth about Social Security."
The real question is about their credibility - first they say they want to take Social Security off the books, then they say they want to rely on the Social Security surplus over the next 10 years to balance the budget.''
by CNB