House appropriators Wednesday easily approved their subcommittee spending allocations as required by Section 602(b) of federal budget law. But key appropriators warned that recent comments by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, represent a retreat from a new policy of not adding legislative language to appropriations bills -- a decision that could bog the bills down.
"I would hope lessons would be learned by the problems of the past," House Appropriations Chairman Livingston said. "We can't change the world in the appropriations process."
Extraneous issues bogged down funding bills throughout the 104th Congress and stalled the recent disaster relief bill. House GOP leaders earlier this year said they planned cleaner funding bills this year. But Tuesday, Armey said Republican leaders would reserve the right to add riders if there was widespread agreement in the GOP Conference to do so.
Livingston agreed that Armey's comments do not follow his understanding of how the process would work this time around. Livingston said appropriators had not caused problems with the disaster relief bill and that "if there were problems, they were other people's problems."
House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., went even further, contending that a group of conservative legislators has "gotten all the wrong messages" from past problems.
Despite warnings from Obey, the committee approved subcommittee allocations that follow the budget agreement reached between GOP leaders and the White House.
"I believe signable bills can be produced from these subdivisions," Livingston said, adding that while President Clinton has been given a "powerful hand" in helping set funding levels, appropriators still have the authority to cut and eliminate programs. Obey said this year's spending levels will result in "benign" bills being passed, but said the levels set for future years of the agreement will not be passed. "The spending cuts ... will not be delivered in the out years," he said.
Obey said the deal calls for a 12 percent cut in non-defense discretionary spending in fiscal 2002 below a Congressional Budget Office baseline adjusted for inflation. That would result in a cut of 20,000 employees from the Social Security Administration, as well as a 19 percent cut in veterans' benefits, he said.
If Congress were serious about implementing the deal, Obey added, cuts would have started this year. Instead, the budget deal calls for spending increases in key areas. "I don't believe these numbers represent an honest account of what will occur," he said.
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