THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 22, 1995 TAG: 9512220412
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL RICHTER AND JONATHAN PETERSON, LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
The federal budget impasse claimed new victims Thursday as Congress' failure to allow emergency spending delayed benefit checks to 3.3 million veterans and survivors and threatened to do the same for 4.7 million needy families.
Although veterans flooded congressional offices with their pleas, legislation to ensure prompt delivery of $1.4 billion in benefits by the new year remained bogged down in the Senate after clearing the House. Partisan cross-fire left the outlook for passage of the measure today unclear.
Even so, growing public impatience with the season's second budget deadlock seemed to motivate political leaders, who resumed negotiations after mostly exchanging invective the day before.
The delays in the benefit checks marked a sharp escalation in the disruption caused by the partial shutdown, which enters a record seventh day today as the result of the failure of government to enact spending bills on time. To date, the greatest impact has been on about 260,000 federal workers, or 13 percent of the work force, who have been furloughed in the shutdown.
Veterans and their advocates reacted quickly, asserting that the thousands of beneficiaries with no other income would suffer substantial hardship from even one day's delay. The checks were to arrive before Jan. 1.
If Congress completes work today on an emergency spending bill, veterans' benefit checks will probably be distributed only one or two days late. But advocates fear congressional inaction until after the weekend could do considerably more harm.
Tens of thousands of the beneficiaries are war veterans who qualify only because they have no other sources of income, advocates said. Another broad category of beneficiaries are disabled veterans who have established that their health was harmed by their military service.
``We're talking about a lot of people who are living paycheck to paycheck,'' said Phil Budahn, a spokesman for the American Legion. ``For them, every day can make a huge difference.''
The American Legion heard from one distraught Massachusetts veteran, at the edge of despair, who said his landlord was threatening to evict him if his check was one day late. In the Sacramento, Calif., area, home to thousands of veterans from three nearby Air Force bases, the offices of Democratic Rep. Vic Fazio received calls from veterans worried about paying rent and meeting medical bills.
Warned by the Clinton administration that delayed action would slow the checks, the House voted Wednesday night 411-1 to pass a temporary spending bill authorizing expenditures only for veterans' benefits.
But Dole would not allow the resolution to reach the Senate floor Thursday.
Analysts said Dole was forced to postpone consideration of the bill because the vote might have resulted in a serious breach between House and Senate Republicans.
Senate Democrats had said they would seek to expand the bill to reopen the nine shuttered Cabinet departments and return 260,000 idled federal employees to work. About eight Republican senators, who are increasingly frustrated with their House colleagues, signaled that they would vote for the amendment. That would assure its passage.
But Dole said he thought it was possible to get a vote today to ensure that veterans benefits are paid.
Another day's delay in passing a temporary spending measure would also slow checks from the Department of Health and Human Services to recipients of the Aid for Families with Dependent Children program. The program is scheduled to spend about $1 billion in January for 4.7 million families, including 9 million children.
To end the budget standoff, administration officials and Republican leaders met for much of Thursday to try to arrange for a meeting today that would include Clinton.
While they did not appear to resolve major differences on tax cuts and spending curbs for health care, the negotiators described the mood as constructive. by CNB