Mary Beth Polley | Fall 2000 Headlines

Merrimack Valley Congressmen in Budget Battle

By Mary Beth Polley

As Congress remains locked in a struggle with the President over funding for education, labor and Medicare, New England Congressmen plan for a possible post-election session to continue the budget battle.

"This is a debate about whose surplus it is," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Malden, who has no idea when Congress will adjourn. "Is it the surplus of the working class and the middle class or the surplus of the wealthy?"

Rep. Markey said the partisan debate is one of ideology with both sides trying to send their campaign message through the appropriations process.

"The Republicans want to send a strong message to their base that they're not willing to spend as much on education and healthcare as the Democrats want."

This is the longest Congress has been in session during an election year. Out of the 13 appropriations bills Congress must complete before it adjourns, seven have become law. Late Monday, the president vetoed the Treasury Department and the Legislative Branch appropriations bills, which included a $3800 pay increase for lawmakers, because the Republicans and Democrats could not come to an agreement on education funding.

"We should take care of our children before we take care of ourselves," President Clinton told reporters in the White House Rose Garden Monday. "The education budget should be our first priority. Yet it seems like the last thing on the Republican agenda."

The bill President Clinton vetoed included $33 billion to finance the Treasury Department and would have also phased-out a 3 percent telephone tax. At President Clinton's request an extra $348 million had been added to the bill to ensure his signature.

"The president is putting politics before the people," said Rep. John E. Sununu, R- NH1, who believes the President has no reason to veto the Treasury-Legislative Branch spending bill. "We provided him with all of the funding he wanted for the IRS, for the Treasury·and then he said he would not sign it. Who is politicizing the process? He doesn't want the spotlight to stop shining on him."

According to Rep. Sununu, every time both parties come close to agreement on any issue, President Clinton threatens to veto a bill "because it doesn't include something else he wants."

Democrats counter that it is Republicans, not the president, who control Congress and keep reneging on bi-partisan agreements.

"The president isn't the one who has the right to push bills through Congress," said Rep. John F. Tierney, D-Salem, of the Republican-controlled Congress. According to Rep. Tierney, the Democratic leadership, President Clinton and even moderate Republicans have tried to compromise over the 2001 fiscal year budget but a "hardcore group of Republicans" refuse to budge. "There's only one majority party and they're the ones who aren't producing any results. This Republican majority doesn't know how to run this institution."

Even though Republicans and Democrats place blame on each other, both sides agree that with the election less than a week away, it looks like Congress could be coming back to finish the appropriations process in a lame-duck session, the first during an election year since 1980.

"There's no question that we can wrap this all up before the election," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH. "I can see right now that it is unlikely that we are going to be able to complete the labor, tax, my own Commerce-Justice-State and the Treasury bill before the election."

While Sen. Gregg places the blame on the White House, saying, "we met with them, agreed to many things they desired, and then they took a walk," other Congressmen believe both sides deserve a piece of the blame.

"The words 'lame duck Congress' in themselves are another reminder of the inability of partisans in Washington, D.C. to put aside election year politics and address real needs in home health care, education, and HMO reform," said Senator John Kerry, D-MA. "Gridlock frustrates me on many levels - particularly because the differences between Democrats and Republicans are not nearly so large as the rhetoric suggests, and the impact of this partisan shadowboxing is that more and more Americans are turned off by national politics that seem to miss what really counts in their lives."

The gridlock is also frustrating the agencies funded by the appropriation bills. The Labor-Health and Human Services and Education Department appropriations bill has not even been introduced into Congress. Both sides reached a potential agreement earlier this week but the Republican leadership would not agree to the compromise, leaving educators and local schools to wonder when and if they would get the funding they needed.

"Last year we received $24 million to help reduce class size, that same kind of appropriation is in jeopardy," said Steve Gorrie, the president of the Massachusetts Education Association. According to Mr. Gorrie, funding for school modernization, after-school programs and special education are all at the mercy of the Congressional budget process. "The longer this drags on, the greater chance we have of jeopardizing some of these very programs."

He hopes that both sides can soon "see beyond political squabbling."

"If we don't see something very soon, it could hinder the development of state and local budgets," Mr. Gorrie said. The Massachusetts's fiscal year begins July 1, he said, but school districts must plan months in advance to be able to continue "desperately needed" school construction and other projects.