WASHINGTON -- In an incumbent-friendly year when most members of Congress could cruise to re-election, House Republican leaders are on a collision course with President Clinton over the only task they must get done: passing spending bills to keep the government running.
White House officials and congressional Republicans are positioning themselves to blame each other if their confrontation threatens a government shutdown shortly before the election.
The White House says the conflict centers on controversial policy changes wedged into spending bills, from restrictions on the 2000 Census and family planning to global warming and public housing. Republicans insist that the disputes are over President Clinton's demand for spending above the caps set in last year's balanced budget agreement.
But the Monica Lewinsky scandal engulfing the White House is providing the political subtext. GOP leaders are hoping to win concessions from a weakened president who has been able to best them in past budget confrontations.
Meanwhile, President Clinton, who is scheduled to appear before a federal grand jury next week, may be grateful for any chance to change the subject back to budget priorities.
"Most of us think when we get back in September, the environment will be drastically different. News will happen," said House Republican Conference Chairman John A. Boehner of Ohio. "We'll size up the endgame when we get back."
Major bills unfinished
This session of Congress will almost surely be remembered more for what it did not accomplish than what it did, political scientists say. With fewer than 20 legislative days remaining, Congress is unlikely to pass any of its major agenda items: tobacco control legislation, campaign finance reform, managed care regulations, proposed tax reforms or a whopping new tax cut.
Lawmakers refused to act on President Clinton's proposals to fund 100,000 new teachers, new school construction and repairs, an expansion of Medicare for early retirees and the unemployed, and new child care programs. With the Monica Lewinsky matter occupying his time and weakening his stature, Clinton has been unable to press his demands.
The lawmakers may not even succeed in passing a budget blueprint for fiscal year 1999. It would be the first time that has happened since 1974, when Congress crafted the law requiring one.
"This Congress has been an abysmal failure," said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, aiming his jab at the Republicans who control the House and Senate. "They haven't the foggiest idea how to reach a consensus, and we can make that stick."
Congress did pass an overhaul of the management and governance of the Internal Revenue Service, but that legislation was largely written last year, when it passed the House.
Lawmakers also passed a $216 billion transportation bill, the largest public works bill in history. But that was supposed to pass in 1997, when the last transportation law expired.
GOP strategy
This meager work product results largely from a deliberate GOP strategy. After a very stormy start when they took over control of Congress in 1995, the Republicans mostly just wanted to stay out of trouble this year.
"It was quite clear right from the beginning that the Republican Congress set out to pass the basic appropriations bills, certainly the highway bill, do some grandstanding on some other things that weren't going to pass, and then go home and run for re-election," said Stephen Hess, a congressional scholar at the liberal Brookings Institution.
What's more, almost all Congress watchers say Republicans are unlikely to pay a price for inaction. The balanced-budget agreement last year appears to be bearing fruit in 1998 with the first budget surplus since 1969, and many of the largest parts of the 1997 tax cut package take effect this year, including a $400-per-child tax credit.
Besides, sometimes the electorate just doesn't want Washington to pass laws.
"As Paul Newman once said, 'Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand,' " said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in California.
But the nation's sanguine mood may change if members of Congress fail to do the one thing they must do: pass the 13 annual spending bills that keep the government running from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
The House has passed 11 of the 13, the Senate just eight. None have completed the process of resolving House and Senate differences so they can be sent to the president. Clinton has threatened to veto as many as seven of the 13 bills, many of which contain policy provisions long sought by conservatives over his objections.
Some Republicans are wondering why their leaders would pursue a policy of confrontation when the electorate is satisfied and Congress hopes to adjourn in early October to campaign for re-election.
"There are always political perils when you pursue a take-it-or-leave-it strategy," said Rep. Amo Houghton, a New York Republican. "That is a very dangerous course of action."
A split in GOP ranks would doom the confrontation strategy no matter what the leadership decides because leaders would need almost every vote.
"The president will be able to use his leverage to get much more than we want to give him," predicted moderate Republican Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut. "We will avoid a shutdown strategy at all costs. The president can almost write his own ticket."
The sticking points are myriad. The House would cut off funding for preparations for the 2000 Census as of March 31 if President Clinton insists on augmenting the national head count with statistical sampling. Democrats say sampling will help catch historically undercounted minorities. Republicans say sampling will open the census to political tampering and inaccuracies and may violate the Constitution's requirement of an "enumeration" of citizens.
The political stakes are high. If sampling counts more minorities, the census could provide Democrats with more seats in Congress. President Clinton has vowed to veto the bill funding the departments of Justice, State and Commerce over the issue.
Sweeping changes
The House funding bill for the departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development contains sweeping changes to the nation's public housing program that would allow middle-income families into housing complexes and turn most federal housing programs into block grants administered by the states. The administration is opposed.
The bill would also eliminate funds for AmeriCorps, the president's cherished national service program, and would prohibit the White House from beginning new programs to combat global warming.
The agriculture spending bill includes a provision to prevent the Food and Drug Administration from testing, developing or approving RU-486 and other drugs that induce abortions.
GOP splits emerge
The two spending bills yet to pass the House have provisions that have divided even the Republicans. The bill to fund the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services would require parents to be notified when teen-agers seek contraception from federally funded family planning agencies.
In a perennial battle, the foreign operations bill is likely to prevent funding for international family planning agencies that counsel on abortion or use their own funds to provide abortions.
Democrats are relishing a White House showdown over these policy "riders." Rep. Vic Fazio of California, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, called it "wishful thinking" to believe a scandal-plagued president will cave in to GOP demands.
House Republicans say the real battle will not be over the policy riders, some of which are likely to drop out during negotiations with the more moderate Senate, but over the amount of money Clinton seeks to spend on new programs. But they fear they may be playing into Clinton's desire to shift attention from his sex-and-perjury scandal.
"If the president is in fact developing a strategy to purposely effect a government shutdown with the hope of blaming us, you've got to wonder why he'd do that -- perhaps to change the subject," said House Republican Leader Dick Armey of Texas.
To keep the subject on money, not policy, some Republicans are suggesting Congress will drop all the policy prescriptions and pass a huge spending plan that keeps the government running into next year at the same level of funding it now receives.
"Then all [Clinton] can say is, 'I want to spend more money,' " said Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Maryland Republican. "And we'll fight that fight."
Pub Date: 8/09/98