WASHINGTON – The Republicans’ election triumph behind them, members of Congress return Tuesday for a lame-duck session amid hope they can finish a huge pile of spending bills stalemated all year.
Legislators also must vote on raising the government’s tapped-out borrowing limit, now at $7.4 trillion. In addition, they would like to pass a bill to put in place the Sept. 11 commission’s vision of reshaping intelligence agencies, although House-Senate disputes make the chances appear dim.
Congressional aides of both parties were working toward an agreement that could let lawmakers quickly finish eight of the nine remaining spending bills for the federal budget year that started Oct. 1.
The deal would involve extra money for veterans, NASA and other White House and congressional priorities while imposing across-the-board cuts of perhaps 0.75 percent on other programs, said aides who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“One way or another, we’re going to get it done,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla.
Lawmakers have ample motivation for a quick postelection session, perhaps lasting little more than a week.
Republicans are eager to clear the decks for President Bush’s second-term initiatives, which he would like to feature overhauls of the tax laws and Social Security.
A postelection session has become a congressional habit, to the dismay of lawmakers who used to spend Novembers and Decembers at home. This will be the fifth consecutive election year in which members of the outgoing Congress have returned to the Capitol, including those who were defeated.
Among them will be outgoing Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., the only Senate incumbent to lose.
Aides say he plans a low-key role, deferring to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who seems certain to be elected Tuesday as Senate Democratic leader for next year’s Congress.
Also in the mix are the Democrats’ defeated presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who is retiring. Both are trying to work out what their future roles will be.
Sen. Arlen Specter hopes to make a direct plea, in a private meeting with Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, for his case to become chairman. Abortion opponents want Specter, R-Pa., bypassed because of his comment after the elections that anti-abortion nominees for judgeships would face a tough time winning Senate confirmation.
By midweek, Republicans hope to approve a bill to increase the government’s debt limit by perhaps $690 billion.
Without a higher borrowing ceiling, an unprecedented federal default could occur. Democrats, searching for telling issues after losing seats in the House and Senate, see the must-pass bill as a chance to highlight the record federal deficits that have arisen during Bush’s presidency.
Of the 13 annual spending bills for the federal budget that started Oct. 1, Congress still must complete nine with a total price tag of more than $300 billion. They would finance a dozen Cabinet departments, from Agriculture to Veterans Affairs, and scores of other agencies.
Least likely to be completed this year is the bill to finance energy and water programs. It is bogged down largely because of a fight over whether to build a nuclear waste depository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, which Reid opposes.
Bush wants the 13 bills to total no more than $821.9 billion. The House matched that amount but the Senate exceeded it by $8 billion, paying for it with accounting devices such as delaying the mailing of some welfare checks into a future budget year.
Associated Press
Sen. John Kerry meets with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., last week.
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