The full Senate GOP leadership team met Monday afternoon to discuss its agenda of "must pass" legislation for 1998, such as reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and the fiscal 1999 budget resolution, which will determine not only the spending limits for FY99 appropriations bills, but the amount of money available for highway programs.
Other items ripe for action include campaign finance reform, which the leadership has committed to voting on by early March; IRS reform; the tobacco settlement; the compensatory time/flextime bill; the higher education IRA measure; juvenile justice; product liability; and judicial and executive branch nominations.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich's only public event this week will be the lighting of the 60-foot holiday tree at 5 p.m. Wednesday on the west front of the Capitol.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, is in Oklahoma City and then Phoenix today on the final leg of his "Scrap the Code" tour with Rep. W.J. (Billy) Tauzin, R-La., debating the comparative merits of replacing the current income tax code with either a flat tax or a national consumption tax.
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., will continue raising money for the 1998 congressional elections this week, attending two fundraisers Tuesday evening for Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, in Burlington, Iowa, and a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser Wednesday evening at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
President Clinton plans to meet with his advisers on the FY99 budget and work on his State of the Union address this week.
On Tuesday afternoon, Clinton leaves for New York, where Wednesday he will visit the South Bronx for a tour and to get an update on urban renewal projects - and possibly do some Christmas shopping. He also is slated to appear at the DCCC fundraiser with Gephardt. Thursday he will be in Miami for an event that will focus on economic issues, and for a fundraiser later in the day.
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