House Republicans draw a hard line on their budget

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 4, 1995 | by Donald Lambro

Ohio Rep. John Kasich's "worst nightmare" about the impending collision between Congress and President Clinton on the budget is that Republicans will avoid it.

"My fear is that we'll all blink, that we won't hang tough and stick to our principles," says the chairman of the House Budget Committee. "My nightmare scenario is we will all wink at one another across the table and that we'll sell the American people a pig in a poke and walk away and not have changed anything."

It's fear, moreover, that is privately raised inside senior GOP congressional circles and among the party's grassroots support groups as Republicans prepare to send their budget-cutting bills to the White House next month.

But Kasich, who helped shape the seven-year budget plan that House Republicans are escorting through the appropriations process, says GOP leaders are ready to accept a government shutdown rather than fold. He maintains that Republicans must be ready to go this far in their battle to force the president to accept the budget reforms that Republican leaders say are necessary to balance the budget in seven years.

"It's up to the president as to whether he wants to recognize the results of the 1994 elections. If the doesn't want to, then I guess the government's going to get closed down," says Kasich. "If he does want to recognize those results, then I think we'll be able to reach an agreement. It's up to him."

Kasich says Republican leaders -- from House Speaker Newt Gingrich on down -- have determined to use whatever legislative tactics are needed to enact their plan. Though reluctant to speculate about how the budget conflict will turn out, Kasich makes it clear "there would be no summit" with the White House to try to work out an early compromise. Republican conservatives bitterly recall the outcome of President Bush's 1990 summit with Democrats: a tax increase and the loss of the White House that followed.

Republican leaders have been researching a number of strategic options in the budget showdown expected when Congress sends its fiscal 1996 budget-reconciliation bill to the president. Fiscal 1996 begins Oct. 1.

If Clinton vetoes the Republican budget, one of the options, which Kasich urges, is to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. The debt measure would be needed to allow the government to borrow beyond the current $4.9 trillion debt ceiling to pay its bills. "We're not going to raise the debt ceiling ... until we get an agreement on a deficit-reduction plan," he says.

Failure to pass a debt-ceiling bill effectively would bring many of the government's agencies and programs to a standstill and could force the White House to accept the Republican budget cuts, but its full impact is still not clear. "We're currently researching" to see if it would have any impact on politically sensitive entitlement programs, such as Social Security, Kasich says.

One hundred and fifty-four House Republicans have signed a letter pledging to vote against raising the debt ceiling if Clinton does not approve the Republican budget bill.

Congress has used the debt-limit law before to force a president to bend to its will on budget matters, but the stalemate usually is suspended by temporary extensions until the dispute is resolved. If the president vetoes most of the 13 fiscal 1996 appropriations bills -- he already has threatened to veto six -- Republicans could finance the government by a single continuing resolution.

Such a measure would allow federal agencies to continue spending money in the new fiscal year, but at the previous year's levels, slowing the growth of government spending. But a freeze would not make the specific spending cuts and reordering of priorities that Republicans are seeking.

"That's maybe not all that bad," Kasich says. "It's being looked at."

Republican leaders also are concerned about who the public will blame for a government shutdown. "We have to do our job," Kasich says. "If we have to take some political hits and some political flak to save the next generation, so be it. It's up to them [the White House]. It's possible they want a train wreck."