Shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, announced the near makings of a deal on the fiscal 1999 omnibus spending bill-but with no congressional Democrats or Clinton administration officials on hand.
Although Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., had gone home for the evening, his chief of staff said Lott is on board with the pending agreement. Gingrich told reporters that "other than writing and drafting, we're down to a handful of very small issues," including ergonomics standards and banning Internet pornography; also unfinished were the tax provisions.
An hour before, White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles left the Capitol planning to return around 10 a.m. today, saying, "We'll hopefully be able to wrap it up then."
Earlier in the evening, as they announced an agreement on education spending, congressional Democrats said there was no final overall deal. House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., said, "They've been telling you every damn night there was a deal. There wasn't one then and there isn't one tonight."
Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said even once a deal is reached, "We're not finished until we've read the language and know what's in it. ... Democratic members are not going to vote for a bill they haven't seen, haven't read and don't understand."
The education deal, which both Republican and Democratic leaders proclaimed a victory, would make $1.1 billion available to local communities to hire new teachers, but did not take up the President's school construction initiative.
On the 2000 census, Gingrich said they will write a Commerce- Justice-State appropriations bill to fund not only the Census Bureau but all agencies in the bill through April 15. A House GOP source close to the issue said negotiators added $75 million in earmarked funds to prepare for a traditional head count, while remaining silent on the more controversial statistical sampling approach. The deal was reached despite a letter the Judicial Conference of the United States sent Monday to Bowles saying partial funding "results in an unprecedented compromise of the independence of the federal courts ... [that] could be viewed as an unwarranted effort to influence important litigation now before the courts."
On U.S. contributions to the International Monetary Fund, Armey declared victory on reforms Republicans wanted in exchange for the $18 billion in funds. Gingrich said the agreement calls for the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Board chairman to "certify publicly" member countries' compliance with new transparency and accountability requirements.
On federal health plans' coverage of contraceptives, Gingrich said they included religious and moral exceptions "we think ... [are] both acceptable to the Republican conference and the Democratic Caucus."
Gingrich and Armey said the package will include supplemental fiscal 1998 spending of about $20 billion, including nearly $6 billion in aid to farmers and a "substantial increase in defense spending." While all of the fiscal 1999 funding in the omnibus is offset, Gingrich conceded that the supplemental spending is not.
NEXT STORY: Dems see gains from lengthy budget talks