Congress - Clinton Agree on Budget

Just 75 days late -- we get a federal budget

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Dateline: 12/14/00
Update: 12/16/00

Congress on Friday, Dec. 15, approved the omnibus combined spending bill, completing its work on the FY 2001 federal budget. Congress then adjourned, ending the 106th session. The 107th Congress will be sworn in on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2001.

Hours after Al Gore and President-Elect Bush told the nation that Republicans and Democrats needed to work together to heal America, President Clinton and Congressional leaders of both parties did just that. Together, they agreed today on a final combined spending bill that will at last complete the $1.8 trillion federal budget for 2001 which should have been completed by October 1. [The Bill is H.R. 4577]

The House and Senate are scheduled to vote tomorrow on a compromise package spending bill highlighted by:

• Spending for the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Department -- $351 billion -- up $13 billion from FY 2000, but $3.6 billion less than proposed by President Clinton. The compromise bill increases spending for education by $6.5 billion to $44.5 billion. Clinton's initiative to reduce class size gets $1.6 billion, some $127 million less than he proposed.
  
  
• Funding for the Treasury Department, the United States Postal Service, the Executive Office of the President, and the Operations of Congress.
  
  
• Restoration of more than $30 billion to health care providers that had been cut from Medicare payments in a 1997 plan to balance the federal budget.
  
  
• A tax break package worth $25 billion over 10 years designed to spur investment in poor areas.

Both the President and Congressional leaders agree the deal is done, and passage of the spending bill tomorrow will allow the lame-duck 106th Congress to adjourn and get out of town just in time for the 107th to take its place on Jan. 3, 2001.

In reaching this compromise on the 2001 budget, Republicans and Democrats agreed to each other's proposals amounting to an overall increase or some $40 billion in government spending from last year. After this year's election, it's nice to see Republicans and Democrats working together, expensive, but nice. Let the healing begin.

By: Robert C. Longley
Date: 12/14/2000
URL: http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa121500a.htm

 

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