BY HOWARD WILKINSON and PAUL BARTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The federal budget has become a major issue in the 1st Congressional District race.
Even before Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Cincinnati, cast his vote against the budget Tuesday, Democrat Roxanne Qualls launched a TV ad attacking the Republican for his opposition.
Mr. Chabot, the two-term Republican, based his opposition to the budget deal worked out between the Clinton administration and GOP leaders on the basis that it grabs $20 billion from next year's projected $70 billion budget surplus and uses it for government operations and a host of pet projects of legislators.
"There's no tax relief in this bill at all, and we're raiding the surplus for a lot of things that are just pure pork," Mr. Chabot said.
But Ms. Qualls, the Cincinnati mayor who is challenging Mr. Chabot, said Mr. Chabot is "ignoring" the benefits for his district of the overall budget package, a $500 million spending package that is part of the $1.7 trillion federal budget.
"What he is voting against is more teachers for Cincinnati's schools," Ms. Qualls told The Cincinnati Enquirer.
In a 30-second TV ad that began airing Tuesday morning, the Qualls campaign accused Mr. Chabot of voting "against new teachers for our local schools," a reference to the $1.2 billion included in the budget package for the hiring of 100,000 teachers nationwide. The ad also charges that, in previous votes, Mr. Chabot "voted to cut student loans by $10 billion" and "led the fight to abolish the Department of Education."
Ms. Qualls said the $20 billion in "emergency" spending Mr. Chabot objected to was a "one time thing, not counted against the budget" and will go to providing aid to drought-stricken farmers, beefing up security at U.S. embassies and supporting U.S. troops in Bosnia.
Last month, Mr. Chabot voted for a House GOP plan to use $80 billion of projected budget surpluses over the next five years for tax cuts, while setting aside $1.4 trillion for Social Security. The House GOP plan has apparently died in the GOP-controlled Senate, but Democrats such as Ms. Qualls have argued against using any of the budget surplus until Congress comes up with a plan to guarantee the solvency of the Social Security system.
The budget agreement that passed Tuesday, Mr. Chabot said, "provides no tax relief whatsoever" and contains, in the $20 billion in "emergency" spending, "a lot of wasteful spending."
"There's stuff in here for grasshopper research in Alaska and a study of caffeinated chewing gum," Mr. Chabot said. "I can't vote to spend taxpayers' money on that kind of thing."
Ms. Qualls argued that Mr. Chabot's earlier vote to use $80 billion of the surplus over five years for tax cuts "amounts to new spending. He was willing to blow a hole in the budget for that."
Mr. Chabot said he had no objections to the education portion of the budget, because it "gives local communities the ability to decide how they want to spend the money."
But Mr. Chabot said he is "disappointed" with the congressional leadership of his own party for working out a deal with the Clinton administration that dipped into next year's project $70 billion surplus to the tune of $20 billion.
"I think the whole budget process really stinks," Mr. Chabot said.
