House Speaker rips White House push for more spending

In a letter Thursday replying to White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., chided the Clinton administration for requesting higher FY2001 spending levels than the House's appropriations bills provide.

"If the President is comfortable with the funding level of the House-passed spending bills, which were $24 billion below the President's budget, please let me know. I would find that to be a refreshing change of pace from the usual last-minute spending request typical of the last seven years of this administration," Hastert wrote.

Referring to GOP leaders' push to get the Labor-HHS appropriations bills--the largest of the FY2001 non-defense domestic spending measures--signed before the August recess, Hastert wrote Podesta that he is "willing to agree to your budget's funding level for the Labor- HHS appropriations bill to show our commitment to getting our work done in an expeditious fashion."

The House passed a $99.9 billion Labor-HHS spending bill, while the Senate bill would spend $106 billion--roughly the same amount as requested by the administration. But the congressional bills differ widely from the White House on issues such as education policy and worker safety.