With the clock ticking toward a midnight shutdown, President Clinton vetoed a temporary borrowing bill Monday and prepared to close most government operations in a jolting political fight with Congress.
Speaking from his Oval Office desk, Clinton accused Republicans of engineering a budget crisis to further their spending priorities. "This is not the time or the place for them to backdoor their budget proposals," he said.The bill that Clinton vetoed would have extended the government's ability to borrow money beyond the current debt limit, which will be reached sometime this week. Clinton noted that Republican amendments would strip the Treasury Department of its ability to dip into federal trust funds to avoid a borrowing crisis.
"They've voted to put the United States on the path to default," Clinton said. Republican amendments also would limit appeals by death-row inmates, make it harder to issue health, safety and environmental regulations and commit the president to a seven-year balanced budget.
He also reiterated his pledge to veto a second bill, which would allow the government to keep operating beyond midnight, when most spending authority expires. A GOP amendment opposed by Clinton would increase Medicare Part B premiums, canceling a scheduled reduction.
In the rare early morning veto ceremony, Clinton offered his own bills to extend spending and borrowing authority - but without the GOP amendments.
Massive federal furloughs may start at midnight, and federal borrowing could be disrupted on Wednesday, but Clinton and his Republican antagonists are showing little inclination to avoid the government shutdown.
White House chief of staff Leon Panetta talked Monday with Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, "to try to find someone who is reasonable that we can talk to," WhiteHouse spokesman Mike McCurry said.
Domenici later suggested temporarily freezing the Medicare Part B premium at $46.10 a month to avoid the showdown over the stopgap spending bill. The Republicans have been holding out for an increase in January 1996 to $53.50 a month. Clinton favors current law, which would let the premium drop to $42.50.
"Perhaps the solution is to freeze it," Domenici told reporters, adding, "I don't want to see the government close down."
Under his idea, the freeze would remain in place for three or four months, the government would not close and the White House and Congress could continue their debate about eliminating the federal deficit.
With a crowd of Democrats roaring in approval, Clinton said in a late-morning speech, "As long as they insist on plunging ahead with a budget that violates our values, in a process that is characterized more by pressure than by constitutional practices, I will fight it.
"I am fighting it today. I will fight it tomorrow. I will fight it next week and next month," he continued. "I will fight it until we get a budget that is fair to all Americans."
Congress approved the borrowing measure Friday, and the Senate planned to ship the stopgap spending bill to the White House on Monday.
A partial federal shutdown looms Tuesday morning, when most agencies' authority to operate would be affected. In all, 800,000 of the 2.1 million civilian workers would be sent home, although air traffic controllers, meat inspectors and others with crucial jobs would keep working. Military personnel would also remain on the job.
"We think we've done our job," House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., told reporters between budget meetings he and Senate Ma-jor-ity Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., at-tend-ed Sunday in the Capitol, where tourists outnumbered lawmakers.
Clinton said Gingrich promised in the spring to force a budget crisis, if necessary, to impose the GOP will.
Launching the first rhetorical attack of the day, Clinton said, "Their goal is to force me to sign legislation which I know to be harmful to our nation and to its future or to veto the legislation - also with harmful consequences."