Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew Thursday said he would recommend a veto of the $1.2 billion fiscal 1999 supplemental appropriations bill being considered by the House Appropriations Committee because it would offset the new spending by cutting $800 million in foreign affairs funding.
"Taken together, these rescissions are so great that the supplemental, as a whole, would constitute a net reduction in U.S. foreign affairs spending-a reduction that would seriously undermine America's capacity to pursue its foreign policy objectives and promote our economic security," Lew wrote in a letter to Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., and ranking member David Obey, D-Wis.
Only $195 million of the House supplemental bill is not offset, but Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., had planned to offer an amendment to offset that amount during the committee's markup Thursday afternoon.
The House supplemental includes $956 million in disaster aid for Central America and Colombia, $100 million for Jordan and $152 million in farm relief. Among the targets for offsetting cuts are the capitalization funds for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, as well as $25 million in funding for World Bank global environmental programs and $150 million to purchase fissionable material from Russia.
Leaders of the Conservative Action Team and the moderate Republican Tuesday Group continued to hit the Clinton administration for rejecting GOP efforts to pay for the package, saying if not offset the supplemental would have to be paid for out of the Social Security trust fund-since the government is running a deficit if Social Security is excluded from the budget.