Fourth short-term funding measure coming

House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, confirmed Tuesday night that congressional and White House negotiators will not finish a fiscal 1999 omnibus spending bill before the current continuing resolution runs out at midnight tonight, adding that the plan is to seek another CR to take them through midnight Friday.

Leaving the Capitol Tuesday after a series of meetings with congressional Democrats and Republican leaders, White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles told reporters: "We don't have a deal." But Bowles said more progress was made Tuesday than at any other time during the talks and that, "We've got a good chance of wrapping it up [Wednesday]."

Negotiators are scheduled to meet again at 10 a.m. today. Armey sounded a few optimistic notes after the meetings ended, saying a deal on funding and contingent reforms for the International Monetary Fund is "fairly close to being done" and predicted it would be finished after "one more conversation" with the administration this morning. Armey also said agreement on funding for the 2000 census is "pretty well wrapped up."

But a senior Senate GOP leadership aide said "a couple of big issues are still open," including whether the tax bill will be folded into the omnibus and the size of the administration's supplemental funding request. A Senate GOP Budget Committee aide said Republicans have gotten it down from the original request of $22 billion to "at least $19 billion," and that of the $4.3 billion in offsets the administration proposed, "we've probably got pay-fors of about $3 billion that [the Congressional Budget Office] will bless."

Despite his prediction a deal can be cut today, Bowles said Tuesday: "As far as we're concerned, the biggest issue [education] is still open. ... We hope we can get there."

Senate Labor and Human Resources ranking member Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., insisted, "Education involves not only resources but how we use them, and that seems to be the point on which there are still differences." Hinting at the details of the attempt to bridge the philosophical gap, Kennedy said, "There is a role for local involvement but there has to be a commitment that the resources will be used for more teachers for more classrooms."

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., earlier said the talks had gotten down to "tedious" matters involving "the law." Republicans have been insisting that special education funding be part of any attempt to provide $1.1 billion to hire new teachers. Gingrich also said, "It'll take all day tomorrow [Wednesday] to get the legislation written." The speaker also said he is pleased the administration has agreed to work with Republicans on the issue of special education.

Negotiators late Tuesday left the potential makings of an agreement to be put on paper by staff. On his way home for the night, House Education and the Workforce Chairman Goodling said, "I'm optimistic. No one was in cement in there."

David Baumann and Mark Wegner also contributed to this report.