THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 2, 1995 TAG: 9512020559
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE AND DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 126 lines
Civilian workers at military bases in Hampton Roads appear likely to escape the next threatened government shutdown - and they have the Bosnian peace agreement to thank for it.
That's because President Clinton reluctantly has allowed a $243 billion defense appropriations bill to become law in hopes that it will ease the way for the planned deployment of 20,000 U.S. troops to help implement the Balkan pact.
Most of the Defense Department's 250,000 civilian workers, including thousands across Hampton Roads, were idled for six days when budget deliberations between Clinton and GOP leaders broke down last month.
The president's acceptance of the appropriations bill this week means that if there is another federal shutdown when his budget truce with the Republican Congress expires Dec. 15, those workers will be able to stay on the job.
That didn't stop an alliance of local labor unions and civil rights activists from lashing out Friday at House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his GOP allies, whom they accused of ``blackmailing'' Clinton.
``We're concerned that the Republicans, as they demonstrated just a short time ago, have no reservations about shutting down the federal government,'' said S. Louis Whitehead, president of the Portsmouth Central Labor Council. ``I suspect that they will do the same thing again.''
Whitehead acknowledged that the appropriations measure takes the heat off the military's civilian workers for the moment. Ultimately, he said, their paychecks are dependent on a budget agreement between Clinton and Congress that includes a rise in the federal debt limit.
``Even though you sign an appropriations bill for defense, if you don't extend the borrowing capacity, you have an authorization to spend, but you don't have any ability to spend it,'' he said.
So far, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin has managed to avoid hitting the $4.9 trillion debt ceiling by tapping civil service retirement trust funds. That's not a permanent fix.
Rubin's juggling of the books generated enough cash to allow the treasury to continue making payments on the federal debt ``until late December,'' according to the Treasury Department.
If the debt ceiling isn't raised by then, Rubin presumably might make other adjustments to further stave off default. Ultimately, however, there could come a point when the government would be unable to make interest payments on its debts, forcing it into default.
The Clinton administration and GOP leaders are still far from agreement on such major issues as Medicare, Medicaid and tax cuts. And the local activists laid the blame for the impasse squarely on the Republicans.
``If they use this vehicle of trying to blackmail the president . . . , I think the American public will get tired of it, and I know federal employees will get tired of it,'' Whitehead said at a Portsmouth news conference.
``They want to minimize government, eliminate departments. . . . They want to do away with the EPA. They're not concerned about workers' rights.''
Clinton's approval of the $243 billion defense spending bill means that seven of the 13 measures needed to finance the government through next September have now been approved. The defense bill was particularly critical to Hampton Roads, with its heavy concentration of military facilities.
In addition to defense, bills financing the Departments of the Treasury, Agriculture, Energy and Transportation, as well as Congress and military construction, have been signed into law. That means that their employees would continue to work and get paid even if Congress and the White House fail to meet their Dec. 15 deadline for completing work on all 1996 spending bills.
Employees of the Commerce, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Interior, Education and Health and Human Services Departments, among others, are covered by six bills that are still pending. That means they face the prospect of another partial shutdown in their operations.
Of the six appropriations bills pending, one that funds NASA and such other agencies as the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development probably is most important to the region. In last month's shutdown, almost 4,700 employees of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton were furloughed.
The White House is urging Congress to complete work on the six bills quickly, so that a pre-Christmas shutdown can be avoided. But Republicans say that would remove much of their leverage in the struggle to get Clinton to agree to a long-term plan for balancing the federal budget.
The GOP is holding out for a seven-year schedule to bring the budget into balance. Gingrich asserted this week that the administration will have no reason to negotiate on that point if all the bills financing government operations in 1996 have received final approval.
With the cost of the Bosnian peacekeeping mission rising to an estimated $2 billion, Clinton reluctantly accepted the defense spending bill, even though it contains $7 billion more than he wanted.
Clinton, who was traveling in Northern Ireland, did not actually sign the bill. It became law automatically when a veto deadline passed at midnight Thursday.
In accepting the spending bill, Clinton rejected the entreaties of liberal lawmakers and accepted the advice of congressional Republicans, centrist Democrats and top military officers.
``I made this decision because my administration has reached agreement with congressional leaders to provide funding, out of the funds contained in this bill, for the troop deployment and other efforts to secure peace in Bosnia,'' Clinton said.
But Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Friday that no such agreement had been reached.
``I think any request the president makes will be sent over here and we'll consider it, but there's been no final agreement,'' Livingston told reporters.
He said some of the money for the Bosnian deployment might come from the defense bill but some might come from ``other sources,'' which he did not specify. MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this report.
DEFENSE INCREASES
In accepting the Republican-backed defense spending bill for fiscal
1996, President Clinton has agreed to spend some $6.9 billion more for
the military than he requested.
The more notable increases in arms spending above Clinton's request
are:
$500 million more in personnel costs.
$800 million more for operations and maintenance.
$777 million more for National Guard and reserve equipment.
$2.1 billion more for research and development, including additional
money to speed the development of a national missile-defense system.
$2.3 billion for two amphibious assault ships; $493 million for B-2
Stealth bombers; and $470 million for additional fighter aircraft.
Some of the extra funding is expected to be rechanneled into support
for the U.S. troop deployment in Bosnia.
- KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
by CNB