Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 26, 1995 TAG: 9505260094
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Acting a week after the House endorsed a similar budget-balancing outline, the Senate voted 57-42, mostly along party lines, to wring $958 billion out of federal ledgers by 2002. The savings would be forged chiefly from Medicare, Medicaid and dozens of other benefits, and 181 agencies and programs would be eliminated, from the Commerce Department to the Opera-Musical Theater Advisory Panel.
Senate passage marked Republicans in both chambers as favoring a sweeping downsizing of the government that has evolved since President Johnson's Great Society and even President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
Moments before pushing the bill through the Senate, GOP lawmakers said they were doing it for the nation's children, who would otherwise face huge costs to pay off the nation's debt. They went out of their way to taunt their chief nemesis, President Clinton, who has not yet proposed a balanced-budget plan of his own.
``Today, the Senate will make a statement and we'll make history in the process,'' said Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan. ``We will finally begin to unpile the deficits. We will finally begin to speak for the future. And we'll do it with one word: Leadership.''
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chief author of the measure, said, ``For the first time in 25 years, the grown-up leadership of America is going to say we're going to pay our own bills.''
The vote put Republicans on a collision course with Clinton and other Democrats. Clinton has vowed to seek compromise, but only after the GOP drops plans for tax cuts for the rich, higher levies for some poor families, education cuts and Medicare reductions that don't address problems of the health care system.
``We must balance the budget, but there is a right way and a wrong way,'' White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta said after the vote. ``The Senate budget is a textbook example of the wrong way.''
``The public will understand who is sacrificing and who will benefit,'' said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. ``This budget will be altered, or it will not become law.''
The biggest difference between the House and Senate plans was tax cuts. The more conservative House would provide $350 billion worth of them for families and businesses over the next seven years. The Senate would permit a package half that size if balancing the budget generates extra savings for the government, reflecting a sentiment that deficit reduction comes first.
House and Senate negotiators are almost sure to include some tax cuts in whatever compromise they work out, probably next month. The president's signature is not needed for the congressional budget, but will be required for the tax- and spending-cut legislation that will follow later this year.
The only senators who defected from their party's line in the vote were three Democrats: Sens. Charles Robb of Virginia, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Sam Nunn of Georgia.
One lawmaker issued a warning. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said he would oppose the compromise budget unless it cut spending even further than the Senate measure.
The plan commits Congress to a seven-year campaign to eliminate deficits that have eaten holes in the budget since 1969. Its specific cuts are merely suggestions for lawmakers who will make final decisions this year; nonetheless, the range of reductions was a clear statement that Republicans envisioned dramatic changes in government.
To distinguish their preferences from those of Republicans, Democrats put the Senate through a second day of assembly-line legislating. But with virtually no debate, the GOP used its muscle to fend off more than two dozen Democratic amendments intended to protect such party favorites as Medicare, national parks and education.
The most sweeping was a budget-balancing plan by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and other Democrats that would have eased Republican reductions in Medicare and domestic programs and closed $228 billion worth of tax loopholes for wealthy individuals and corporations.
by CNB