Conservatives warn against increased spending next year

Negotiations between the White House and Congress over fiscal 2002 spending remained in flux Monday night, but fiscal conservatives in both chambers cautioned that they would not support any increase unrelated to defense or the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Last week, chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees met with Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels to propose raising the FY02 spending limit to $686 billion in budget authority. With that amount, appropriators said they could complete all 13 FY02 bills by the end of October. Under the proposal, Congress would use OMB scoring for the outlays.

They have yet to receive a counteroffer from OMB to their proposal, which includes the $661.3 billion spending cap set in the budget resolution, plus the President's proposed $18.4 billion FY02 defense increase, another $4 billion for education and $2.2 billion in pre-Sept. 11 emergency spending in the Interior and VA-HUD bills.

Without a response from the White House or an agreed education spending figure, House Appropriations Committee ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., who is also ranking member on the Labor-HHS Subcommittee, said Monday he was not inclined to proceed with today's scheduled subcommittee markup of the Labor-HHS bill.

Appropriators had planned to include the education increase in their markup vehicle. In the House, the education add-on amounts to a net increase of $3.3 billion.

Said Obey: "We still don't have an overall agreement with the White House. It would be nice if we had an agreement before we went to markup."

As of Monday Monday night, it was uncertain whether the markup would go ahead as scheduled today.

Commenting on the bipartisan unity among House and Senate appropriators on the $686 billion figure, Obey added: "The administration is looking for unity. The only people who aren't on board are at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue."

But while the top appropriators agree they can complete the FY02 appropriations bills for $686 billion, neither House nor Senate leaders have formally signed off on that number--and fiscal conservatives are lining up against it.

"Unless we're careful here, we're going to spend the whole surplus," said Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas. "I just think that we wrote a budget and we ought to stick to it."

Gramm said the FY02 budget resolution could accommodate the President's defense amendment.

But Gramm also conceded that if the White House accepted a higher overall number, "it wouldn't matter what I think."

House conservatives were similarly concerned. Reps. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., and Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said that increases beyond the defense amendment, and the $40 billion emergency supplemental approved in the wake of the terrorist attacks, would give conservatives heartburn.

Ryan said he feared the new money needed to combat terrorism would kick off "a feeding frenzy" of spending. "I feel like we're losing any of the spending discipline we've ever had," Ryan said.

Ryan called for Congress to keep to the domestic discretionary limits set in the budget resolution, predicting that otherwise, "I think you'll see conservatives walk."

Toomey also worried that the push to spend more to fight terrorism and respond to the Sept. 11 attacks will become "an opportunity for some to spend more money across the board," a development he predicted would leave conservatives "very disturbed."

Toomey put his faith in the White House to hold the line. "I certainly hope the President will stick to the number in the budget," plus the defense increase, he said.

The House approved a continuing resolution Monday to fund the government through Oct. 16 at current levels by a vote of 392-0, and appointed conferees on the Commerce-Justice-State bill.

Conferees could not be appointed last week because Ways and Means Chairman Thomas and ranking member Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., "blue-slipped" the Senate version, which contained a provision banning diamond imports from African conflict zones.

The Senate removed the provision--which, as a revenue measure, must originate in the House--and sent the bill back to the House, clearing the way for conferees to be appointed Monday.