Bowing to the demands of House Republican conservatives, House GOP leaders Friday decided that fiscal 1999 appropriations bills will not include any emergency funding that is not offset.
"We reached a general agreement in there that we shouldn't change budgetary practices," Rep. Mark Neumann, R-Wis., one of the conservatives who has been fighting with appropriators over the issue, said following a House Republican Conference.
Instead of designating certain spending as emergencies that are not offset, appropriators will bundle those items into a supplemental spending bill that will have offsetting cuts. The offsets for the bill, which the Appropriations Committee could mark up next week, could come from entitlement or discretionary spending, Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., said. Discussing the leadership decision to offset the spending, Livingston referred to it as an "edict that was decreed."
As originally designed by appropriators, some $4 billion in funding to help solve the year 2000 computer glitch had been designated as emergency spending, as had almost $30 million in the FY99 Agriculture appropriations bill to help wheat farmers affected by sanctions against India and Pakistan. In addition, the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee had set aside about $250 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency money as emergency funding.
The agriculture money is now likely to be offset and the FEMA proposal dropped, appropriators said, adding that the Y2K problem funding will be placed in the supplemental bill.
Neumann said placing the funding into a supplemental bill allows appropriators to find offsets "anywhere," and Livingston said GOP leaders will "challenge" authorizing committees to find cuts in mandatory programs to pay for the spending.
Neumann, who had threatened along with his conservative colleagues to bog down funding bills with amendments, was pleased with the proposal. "I think it's a great solution," he said.
Another conservative agreed. "I'm real satisfied," said Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., adding, "That's what we wanted all along."
Discussing the wheat provision, its sponsor, Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., said, "What we'll probably do is find an offset." Nethercutt said appropriators are confused about why the CBO had even scored the provision as costing the federal government any money.
The VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee had decided to set aside part of the FEMA fund as an emergency, and Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said he would have no trouble offsetting it. However, Livingston said the FEMA provision may simply be dropped. Livingston said he is not worried about having to pass an additional spending bill, even though the schedule is getting tighter. But one senior House Appropriations Committee aide referred to the situation as a "calamity."
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