The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 9, 1995 - 9A
Despite veto threats, GOP
readies limits on spending
Committee derails abortion bill
Proposal bans 'partial-birth abortions,' fines doctors
WASHINGTON (AP)-Scoffing at
veto threats, Republicans pushed a bill
through the House yesterday that would
avert a government shutdown and la-
bored to craft another measure intended
to forestall a first-ever federal default.
The government's ability to spend
and borrow money expires next week,
and the two measures would continue
each activity into next month, though
with restrictions. But with the long-
running fight over GOP plans to bal-
ance the budget by 2002 as a backdrop,
administration officials and congres-
sional Democrats warned that Presi-
dent Clinton would kill both bills.
"It's like high noon," said House
Budget Committee Chairman John
Kasich (R-Ohio). "At some point, we're
walking out of that saloon and if we
have to have a battle, we have to have a
battle."
On a near party-line 230-197 roll
call, the House voted to finance federal
operations through Dec. 1, though at
much lower levels than this year. The
chamber planned to turn today to legis-
lation extending federal borrowing au-
thority. The Senate planned to consider
both today.
Democrats said both measures are
overloaded with misguided Republi-
can priorities, such as a ban against
lobbying by many private groups and
companies that was inserted into the
spending bill. An effort by Democrats
and moderate Republicans to remove
the lobbying restrictions from the bill
failed on a 216-210 procedural vote,
but the language was not, expected to
survive in the Senate.
Democrats also said the borrowing
measure contained restrictions on the
use of federal funds that would actually
boost the prospects of a first-ever de-
fault, not forestall it.
"There is no back-door way for them
to write a budget that's unacceptable
for the president," said White House
spokesman Mike McCurry. "And they
just need to recognize that. ... Other-
wise we face default, shutdown of gov-
ernment, or some combination of both."
Added Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle (D-S.D.): "The President will
veto anything that looks like what the
Republicans are attempting to push
through. He'll veto it. It's over."
Complicating the GOP's task were
divisions between the moderate Senate
and the more confrontational House.
Provisions planned for the House bills
to ensure conservative support, such as
the lobbying limits and elimination of
the Commerce Department, are less
popular in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON-As House and
Senate Republicans battle President
Clinton overthe budget,they are find-
ing they often must settle disputes
among themselves first.
This week, House Republican lead-
ers, as they have so often this year,
scrambled to balance the demands of
House Republican freshmen, intent
on changing the way Washington
works, against the wishes of GOP
moderates in the leaders' quest for
the votes to pass bills needed to keep
the government operating past next
week.
To complicate the mission, moder-
ate Senate Republicans declared they
cannot accept some of the provisions
intended to attract the votes of the
conservatives Republicans who hold
sway in the House.
The delicate balancing act that
House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-
Ga.), and his leadership team has
had to carry out time and again
underscores the challenges of run-
ning a legislative body with a slim
majority in which the largest fac-
tion has an almost religious sense
of mission. Team Gingrich has
rarely failed to find a way to vic-
tory. But as Republicans head to-
ward the endgame of their legisla-
tive revolution -and the final deals
are cut - some of the measures
(R-Kan.) said flatly that the provision
eliminating Commerce would not be in
the Senate's debt-limit bill. It seemed
likelythatthe Senate would deletemany
of the controversial provisions laterthis
week before the bills could be sent to
the President.
The maneuvering on the two short-
term bills obscured the more difficult
problems facing GOP leaders over their
budget-balancing legislation. Under
similar House and Senate plans, Re-
publicans would carve savings out of
hundreds of programs and overhaul
Medicare, Medicaid and welfare, while
dispensing tax breaks to millions of
families and businesses.
Gingrich and Dole spent much of the
day behind closed doors, meeting with
various lawmakers in an attempt to
sculpt compromise between the two
chambers. Medicare bargainers agreed
to require automatic cuts should say-
House Republicans want most are
in jeopardy.
Late yesterday, 17 Republicans
joined Democrats to come within a
handful of votes to defeat a provision
limiting the political activity of fed-
eral grants recipients, which was
added to the interim spending bill to
attract conservatives.
In addition, divisions among Re-
publicans continue to keep Congress
from doing its most basic job- pass-
ing 13 spending bills that fund the
government. Nearly six weeks into
the spending year, only two have
been signed into law. Many of the
others are bogged down over
intraparty disputes over such issues
as abortion and environmental pro-
tection.
And what wins a majority in the
House does not always win a major-
ity in the Senate.
"We're not at the point where we're
worried about what will fly in the
Senate," a House GOP leadership
aide said yesterday. "We're worried
about it flying in the House. They've
got to get their votes, we've got to get
ours."
In the House, the driving force has
been the 73 GOP freshmen, whose
election gavetheirparty its first House
majority in 40 years. First among
their priorities is eliminating the bud-
get deficit.
ings fall short of targets, and to drop
Senate-approved increases in the $100
annual deductible for doctors' services,
said House Ways and Means Commit-
tee Chairman Bill Archer (R-Texas).'
GOP leaders want to complete the
bicameral negotiations by this week-
end and to muscle the compromise
measure through Congress and to
Clinton next week.
One compromise already forged drew
sharp criticism yesterday from Demo-
crats: a steep curtailment of a Clinton-
initiated student loan program called
direct lending. The House had wanted
to kill the 2-year-old program and the
Senate to cap it at 20 percent of all
student loans. The compromise is 10
percent.
The stopgap spending bill would al-
low most federal agencies to keep oper-
ating through Dec. 1, though at levels as
low as 60 percent oflastyear's spending.
Republicans battle among
themselves over proposals
Court says immigrants have same rights as citizens
The appellate judges also upheld
Wilson's preliminary injunction against
the selective enforcement of immigra-
tion laws against six of the aliens.
They reversed Wilson on one ruling
- his determination that he did not
have jurisdiction to issue an injunction
halting the deportation proceedings
against the other two, Khader Musa
Hamide and Michael Ibrahaim Shehade,
who have permanent resident alien sta-
tus.
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When A Man Loves A Woman
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