Budget Deal May Be In The Offing

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, March 25) -- A week after President Bill Clinton submitted his fiscal 1997 budget, congressional lawmakers and the White House may finally be ready to end the fiscal '96 budgetary standoff that has twice shut down the federal government.

"We are so close, we have really laid the path," New York GOP Sen. Alfonse D'Amato said late Sunday on CNN. "People are getting sick and tired of this nonsense, " D'Amato declared, referring to the shutdowns and 11 stopgap measures to fund the government since last fall. (91K AIFF or WAV sound)

New Republican concessions to restore about $1.3 billion for pet administration projects may have paved the way for the deal. In turn, the White House agreed to other spending reductions. Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, also on CNN, said: "We think that something in that vicinity is about right, and we are willing to pay for it."

But House Budget leader John Kashich (R-Ohio) earlier in the day was less sanguine. He said the GOP would present the president with several bills, including a balanced budget agreement and a welfare reform bill. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Kasich intoned: "We've got to do this right and hopefully this November we'll get the lineup in place so that instead of having this bill vetoed we'll have it signed."

Kashich suggested, however, that Republicans would strip provisions for medical savings accounts from a bipartisan reform bill to allow employees to transfer insurance policies between jobs. Clinton has indicated he'll veto any bill including medical savings accounts, and Kasich said the GOP leadership wouldn't "destroy the ability to give people the portability and eliminate pre-existing conditions."

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