Closing the books on fiscal 1998, the House and Senate passed the defense-disaster relief spending bill late Thursday and sent the measure to President Clinton.
The president was expected to sign the bill, after both houses rushed passage to meet a May 1 deadline set by Defense Secretary Cohen, who said he needs the funds to avoid furloughs. The House passed the bill, 242-163. The vote in the Senate was 88-11.
The president's signature was in question until Thursday, when the conferees put the finishing touches on the bill by dropping a plan to help shore up interest rates in the guaranteed student loan program.
By late Thursday, House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., who bitterly opposed the bill, was saying the president would sign it.
"I understand why, because he's been trying to get the Bosnia money for a long time," Obey told CongressDaily. He said Clinton is trying to "deal constructively with people who aren't trying to deal constructively with him."
The bill provides almost $2.9 billion for defense programs and $2.6 billion for disaster relief efforts. The disaster relief section is offset with cuts in federal housing and airport grant programs.
As the president's signature was in question, House Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., said that if Clinton vetoed the bill, he would go to the floor next week and attempt to force troops abroad to come home.
House Rules Chairman Solomon said he would help Livingston with that effort.
Even as the bill was being worked out, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, attacked Clinton for threatening a veto over the student loan issue. "The supply of student loans is about to get drastically smaller," Armey said, adding that students will feel the impact.
The legislation also lacks new funding for the International Monetary Fund, an omission that has drawn extensive administration criticism. But administration officials indicate the supplemental will not be vetoed over the IMF money.
On another spending issue, members of two House Democratic groups, the New Democratic Coalition and The Coalition, better known as the "Blue Dogs", criticized House Republican leaders for not yet having produced a budget resolution.
Some 29 of the moderate-to-conservative Democrats wrote House Budget Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, this week, saying the delay threatens to undermine the progress made with the 1997 balanced budget agreement and the 1993 budget package.
"This failure threatens the orderly completion of the appropriations process," the Democrats said.
Kasich and House GOP leaders have begun a series of meetings with Republicans to discuss the chairman's controversial plan to cut more than $100 billion as part of the budget.
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