Congress, White House avert shutdown

Congress passed a short-term funding measure late Friday to prevent the government from shutting down as House, Senate and White House negotiators continued to try to hammer out agreements on fiscal 1999 appropriations bills.

A previous stopgap measure was scheduled to expire on midnight Friday. The new measure will keep agencies open through Monday. It passed by a vote of 421-0 in the House and by voice vote in the Senate. Clinton signed it Friday night.

Office of Personnel Management Director Janice Lachance issued a memorandum to agencies Friday afternoon instructing federal employees scheduled to work on the weekend to report for duty.

Back on Capitol Hill, members and staff prepared for lengthy negotiations.

"I don't think we're going to be going home until negotiations are complete," a House Republican leadership aide said Friday afternoon, as the House GOP Conference met. He said members "understand there's going to be a long weekend before everyone goes home."

During the GOP Conference session, members were overheard chanting, "Work, work, work." Republican members want to stay in town and show they are resolved to passing the omnibus bill, sources said.

But the exact weekend schedule remained unclear on Friday. House Republicans were likely to hold another Conference meeting late Saturday to decide whether sufficient progress had been made to work through Sunday to finish the bill or if progress had slowed to the point where they should go home and return Tuesday.

Neither congressional Republicans or the White House showed any interest in allowing the government to close as a result of budget squabbles. "There's no threat of a government shutdown," said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., according to the Associated Press.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., was somewhat pessimistic about the progress of budget talks, a source said. And appropriators' moods fell as talks went nowhere early Friday, but then rose as Livingston said the sides had agreed to a framework for talks.

"We haven't made a lot of progress in the last day and a half, with the exception of the [International Monetary Fund]," Livingston said at noon. But at 2 p.m., he said the sides had agreed on "how we discuss things."