NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, March 29, 1993
5
© 1993 Teachers Insurance and Academy Association College Retirement Equity Fund
Budget battle continues
Proposal's road could be rough
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Round one in the battle of the nation's struggling economy is about to go to President Clinton. But his recovery plan, which now looks sturdy, has soft spots that might be bruised in the nastier brawls Congress will wage soon, some say.
Lawmakers, aides and lobbyists watching the budget plan's progress believe that Clinton's proposals to raise spending for road repairs and other programs, to boost the energy tax and to bestow an investment tax credit on companies face rough going.
Republicans and even some Democrats will be leading the charge for alterations.
"We start shooting with real bullets from here on," Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., promised last week after his chamber approved a preliminary blueprint of Clinton's budget package.
The House passed its own version of the budget bill and has approved a separate short-term stimulus bill, which includes $16.3 billion for summer jobs, unemployment insurance, highway projects and various other civic improvements.
The Senate takes up the jobs bill this week. By week's end, Congress will have all but certainly blessed a final version of the budget outline, which reflects the economic medicine Clinton prescribed in a national television address just six weeks ago.
It will envision increase tax increases and spending cuts to trim $500 billion off budget deficits during the next five years, plus long-term increases for a list of domestic programs Clinton says will spur economic growth.
But that measure is just a statement of goals.
Actual tax and spending changes will be made in legislation that Democratic leaders hope to finish this summer. At that point, the stakes get higher, because lawmakers will be voting directly to raise their constituents' taxes or cut programs in their home districts.
Then Republicans hope they can cure away enough Democrats to unravel Clinton's package. But Democratic leaders disagree.
"We think we're going to pass the president's program largely intact," said Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine.
Democrats say the plan's tax increases on the rich are unshakable.
defend Clinton's planned defense cuts, which are about $110 billion deeper than President Bush had planned for the next five years.
Republicans want to cut the reduction in half, and predict that in an unstable world and with domestic defense jobs at stake, they will get enough Democratic support to do it.
They also say they successfully will
Bitter fights also loom later this year when Congress puts its domestic spending bills together.
That is because the budget will hold these programs to slightly less money than would be needed to stay even with inflation. The competition will be fierce — especially because Clinton wants to give big boosts to jobtraining and dozens of other programs to help the economy grow.
As a result, Clinton probably won't get all the increases he wants. And perennially favorite targets like the $40 billion space station and the $8 billion superconducting super collider are likely to face big pressure for cuts.
Another big battleground will be the tax Clinton has proposed on energy use. The broad tax, based on a fuel's heat content, is supposed to raise $70 billion in five years, making it one of the cornerstones of his package.
Russian Congress' attempt to oust Yeltsin and rival fails
The Associated Press.
MOSCOW—Both President Boris Yeltsin and his chief political rival claimed victory yesterday after surviving an attempt by the Russian Congress to remove them from office.
But the secret ballot by the Congress of People's Deputies left the country's political crisis unresolved after a dramatic day of rejected compromise and huge street rallies.
"A Communist coup has failed." Yeltsin told thousands of cheering supporters outside the Kremlin after the vote. "The people have won."
Despite the euphoria, Yeltsin is in is the same predicament he faced before the Congress convened Friday. He vowed to press ahead with an April 25 referendum to resolve his power struggle with the parliament, dominated by former Communists who want to slow his free-market reforms.
Waving his fist, he then led the crowd in a chant of "Russia! Russia! Russia!"
The parliament's electoral commission announced 617 legislators cast their ballots for Veltins' ouster, 72 short of the 689 votes — or two-thirds of the Congress — needed to remove him.
Only 339 lawmakers voted to replace Yelisin's rival, parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulat. At least 517 votes, a simple majority of the 1,033 member Congress, would have been needed to replace the 50-year-old parliament leader.
The vote followed Congress' rejection of a compromise proposed by Yeltsin and Khasbulatov in an effort to end their political battle.
The compromise enraged the legislators because it would have eliminated the Congress — and their jobs — in favor of a smaller, bicameral legislature.
The Congress adjourned after the results were announced. It will reconvene today. Khasbulatov thanked the legislators for their support and said he was surprised by the outcome.
"During the three years that I have filled this post I thought many more
deputies had reason to be dissatisfied with me," he said.
Khasbulatov added that the voting signaled the need for a change in Yeltsin's economic reforms.
"When an enormous number of deputies almost remove the president from office, we all have to think about this signal very seriously," he said.
Also yesterday, Yoltsin issued a series of decrees aimed at helping the people who have been hit hardest by his economic reforms. The measures double the minimum wage, increase allowances for students and the disabled, improve health care funding for government workers and give regional governments the right to stabilize skyrocketing prices for basic goods.
Yeltsin earlier told a crowd of about 50,000 supporters who rallied outside the Kremlin that he would not step down, even if the Congress voted to oust him.
"I will obey only the will of the people," he said as he raised a clenched fist while standing on a platform under the domes of St. Basil's Cathedral.
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