BY JANET HOOK
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -- The House on Tuesday night overwhelmingly passed the budget deal struck by GOP congressional leaders and the White House, despite opposition from dozens of conservative Republicans who complained that the bill spends too much while cutting taxes too little.
The vote in favor of the $500 billion-plus appropriations bill was 333-95. The Senate also debated the measure Tuesday and is expected to approve it today, wrapping up a stormy session of Congress destined to be best remembered for the impeachment inquiry launched against President Clinton.
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AT A GLANCE
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Some major spending items in the $520 billion fiscal 1999 budget package:
$56 billion for agriculture and rural development, including $22.6 billion for food stamps, $9.2 billion for child nutrition and $1 billion for the Food and Drug Administration.
$34 billion for the departments of Commerce, Justice and State, including $5.2 billion from the Violent Crime Trust Fund. Programs include $1 billion for the year 2000 Census and $4.8 billion for law enforcement.
$500 million in federal funds for the District of Columbia. $31.3 billion for foreign operations, including $2.94 billion in aid for Israel, $2 billion for Egypt and $800 million for the former Soviet states. The International Monetary Fund gets $17.9 billion, conditioned on becoming more efficient.
$14.1 billion for Interior and Indian programs, including $1.7 billion for the National Park Service, and $98.5 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.
$292 billion for the departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. Included are $4.7 billion for Head Start and $15.6 billion for the National Institutes of Health.
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The final House vote was a surprisingly bipartisan capstone to the highly partisan year in Congress, one in which Republicans and Democrats were consistently unable to agree on major issues. Ultimately, more Democrats voted for the spending bill than Republicans. And the GOP foes of the measure - including Tristate congressmen Steve Chabot and Rob Portman far outnumbered the Democrats voting against it -- 64-31.
To stem conservative defections, once-strident Republican leaders urged their troops to recognize that the deal was the best they could reach with a Democratic president. They also stressed that it contains such GOP priorities as a large increase in the defense budget and significantly more money for anti-drug initiatives than Mr. Clinton had sought.
"In a free society you have to have give and take," said House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. "There is no responsible vote except "yes.' "
Mr. Gingrich directed sharp rebukes at the bill's GOP critics, saying that "perfectionist" conservatives had no realistic alternative to the budget compromises.
"It is easy to get up and say, "Vote no,' " Mr. Gingrich said. "Then what would you do? Those of us who have grown up and matured . . . understand that we have to work together on the big issues."
Lawmakers from both parties and in both chambers -- given little time to review the 4,000-page, 40-pound bill produced in secret talks among a handful of top officials -- howled at the way the legislation emerged from the contemporary equivalent of a smoke-filled room.
"Anybody who tells me they have a handle on this bill is like the local weather forecaster: They are either a fool or a newcomer," said Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.
The bill, needed to keep the government running for the next year, became a magnet for all manner of legislative desiderata -- from major policy changes on public housing to parochial local projects.
The package, which combines eight unfinished appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, provides money for a broad range of government operations, including funding for 10 Cabinet departments and the entire foreign assistance budget. It also dips into the projected $70 billion budget surplus to provide $20 billion for peacekeeping in Bosnia, aid to farmers and other activities deemed "emergencies" by Congress.
In appropriating this money, Republicans broke their pledge not to spend the surplus for anything but tax cuts; Democrats broke their promise to reserve it all for Social Security.
The bill's key elements include $1.2 billion for the first installment of Mr. Clinton's initiative to hire 100,000 new teachers, $18 billion the president sought for the International Monetary Fund and the $690 million anti-drug package pushed by Republicans.
Conservative critics
Despite the efforts by GOP leaders to cast the agreement in its best light, some conservative Republicans cited a variety of reasons for opposing the deal. These included the decision to spend part of the budget surplus and the accord's failure to cut taxes significantly. Many of these Republican critics first were elected to Congress in 1994, part of that year's huge GOP victory.
"I came here four years ago talking about tax cuts, smaller government, and doing the right thing," said Rep. Jon Christensen, R-Neb. "This is not what I came to do, to vote for a bill that . . . has very little tax cuts in it. This is an embarrassment."
Rep. David McIntosh, R-Ind., said the deal sent a powerful message to his party's base on Election Day: "Send us more conservatives. Send us more Republicans and next year we won't have to go through this process."
Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, called the process "ugly" and said, "I hated it."
On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee who is famous for the huge amount of pork-barrel spending he directs to his home state, complained: "This is a creation without a mother or father. It's more like a Frankenstein monster patched together from old legislative body parts that don't quite fit."
But the divided GOP put many Democrats in the surprising position of making some of the most enthusiastic arguments in favor of the bill. They welcomed its increased funding for education and other social programs.
"This budget bill is a victory for the American people," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif. "It is a victory over mindless partisanship and it is a terrific victory for education."
Last-minute revisions
Although the bill's basic outlines had been announced last week with great fanfare by White House and GOP leaders, lawmakers and their aides worked through the weekend to settle dozens of remaining disputes -- and to handle a stampede of requests by lawmakers to get pet projects included in the measure.
Typical of the major issues addressed at the last minute was the Chemical Weapons Convention. The treaty, which bans chemical weapons worldwide, had been ratified by the Senate more than a year ago, but the House had not passed the legislation required to implement it. That measure was tacked onto the budget bill at the last minute.
Typical of other issues addressed in the bill is the provision concerning peanuts in airplanes. Language added to the bill will block a Transportation Department directive requiring airlines to designate areas where peanuts will not be served. The rules were proposed to protect people who are allergic to peanuts; critics say it is an overreaction without scientific justification.
A particularly expensive last-minute addition to the bill will funnel $1.7 billion into Medicare to pay for home health-care services. The proposal is designed to ease cuts made in payments in last year's budget-balancing agreement, which critics say have forced some home health agencies out of business.
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