Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 18, 1995 TAG: 9511200107
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
With GOP lawmakers cheering the vote, the House ratified the seven-year balanced budget, 237-189, almost exclusively along party lines. A few hours later, the Senate concurred, 52-47, but with one minor change that requires another vote in the House today.
Even so, Republicans celebrated. ``This is truly a historic accomplishment,'' said Speaker Newt Gingrich, the first Republican speaker in four decades. He called it ``the most important vote since 1933'' when the New Deal was launched. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole called it ``the most important'' vote of his career.
The measure would squeeze hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and other social programs, while leaving room for tax breaks for families and businesses. Democrats said it was tilted unconscionably toward the rich, and President Clinton threatened a veto.
The Senate voted in midevening, at the same time key GOP lawmakers reviewed a proposal to end a four-day impasse that has idled hundreds of thousands of federal workers and closed facilities from the Smithsonian museums to the Grand Canyon.
Officials involved in the discussions said the White House, backed by congressional Democrats, had proposed to reopen government and commit to comprehensive talks on a balanced budget.
The proposal said ``the goal of the negotiations'' would be to balance the budget in seven years - short of the Republican demand for a firmer commitment to balancing the budget.
``They're talking about goals, time frames and a lot of ambiguous language,'' Dole said. ``We'll just have to look at it. It's going to take awhile.''
The White House put a positive spin on the closed-door talks to end the shutdown that has idled hundreds of thousands of federal employees.
``We've got some language that we feel should be acceptable to both sides,'' White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters, as chief of staff Leon Panetta met with lawmakers at the Capitol.
Participants in the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House was proposing that the talks aim at balancing the budget in ``seven years under Congressional Budget Office economic assumptions, or in a time frame and under economic assumptions agreed to by negotiators.''
That, too, was short of a GOP demand for a firm commitment for a seven-year plan, carried out under CBO's estimates for economic growth, inflation and other measurements.
The proposal would reopen the government through mid-December, presumably to allow time for the budget talks to bear fruit.
The GOP balanced-budget bill would change the face of government, cutting many programs, eliminating others, and turning over to the states power that has steadily accumulated in Washington in the past six decades.
The culmination of the Republican revolution, the budget bill was attacked by Clinton as containing ``the biggest Medicare and Medicaid cuts in history, unprecedented cuts in education and the environment and steep tax increases on working families.''
Clinton stood ready to veto a second measure, as well, to reopen until Dec. 5 government services now shut down. But Republicans weren't letting that one leave the Capitol, even though it cleared both houses Thursday.
Publicly, Clinton was demanding that lawmakers approve legislation to reopen the government without precondition.
But with lawmakers feeling pressure to restore services and many Democrats privately urging the White House to compromise, Panetta went to the Capitol for discussions.
He spent much of his time consulting with Democrats, many of whom have signaled the White House privately and publicly in recent days that it was time to end the standoff with Republicans.
That left hundreds of thousands of government employees furloughed for the fourth straight day in the longest shutdown in federal history.
by CNB