ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9604010037
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Note: lede
For the 12th time this deadlocked budget year, President Clinton signed a stopgap bill Friday to keep government running - and to let lawmakers begin a two-week spring break.
By voice vote in the House and a 64-24 Senate roll call, lawmakers agreed to temporarily let dozens of agencies function while the two sides continue their relentless battle over the size of job training, health and many other programs for 1996. Without the temporary legislation, large parts of many agencies would have been forced into an election-year closure at midnight that neither party wanted to see.
The White House said Clinton signed the bill in early evening. The resolution keeps the agencies in funds through April 24 - when there will be a bit over five months left in the fiscal year. Clinton also signed another budget measure to extend the government's borrowing ability and to let working Social Security recipients receive higher benefits.
Legislators had hoped to complete their 1996 budget business before their Easter-Passover break, which began Friday afternoon. None was more eager to do so than Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., the GOP presidential candidate who wants this Congress to build a record of Republican achievements. Instead, chagrined lawmakers will return in mid-April facing unresolved spending questions about this year, and having to start work on the 1997 measures.
``I think we're 85 percent there, maybe 90 percent,'' House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., said of the 1996 legislation. ``We're solving issues that have been lingering for nine months.''
The short-term measure approved Friday also contains $200 million to help war-torn Bosnia rebuild public services, and the remaining $220 million of the annual federal payment to the District of Columbia.
Though Friday saw only a short-term solution to the 1996 budget fight, Clinton was ready to use his pen to end another fiscal problem for a longer time. He planned to sign a bill extending the Treasury's borrowing authority to $5.5 trillion - up from $4.9 trillion and enough to let the government pay its bills well into 1997.
For months, Republicans had used the borrowing legislation as a political weapon, refusing to send it to Clinton unless he acceded to their demands for a balanced budget in seven years. But after talks between the two sides failed and Republicans bore most public blame for forcing two federal shutdowns, GOP leaders eased their combative tactics.
Instead, they placed two provisions on the debt-limit legislation that both they and Clinton favored: one boosting Social Security benefits for recipients who still work, the other granting new authority for small businesses to challenge federal regulations in court. Congress approved the legislation Thursday.
The Social Security language raises the current limit on outside earnings from $11,520 to $12,500 this year and to $30,000 by 2002. Recipients between the ages of 65 and 69 lose $1 in benefits for each $3 they earn above the limit.
Also Friday, the House sent Clinton a bill limiting punitive damage awards in faulty-product lawsuits. Supporters say the measure would thwart frivolous lawsuits; opponents say it would allow insufficient compensation for victims of defective products. Clinton has threatened to veto it.
When Congress returns April 15 - the day income tax returns are due - Republicans plan a pair of votes that while destined to lose will demonstrate their conservative fiscal philosophy. The House will vote on making it harder for Congress to raise taxes, and there will be a renewed Senate effort to approve a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB