Efforts by the Clinton administration and Republican leaders to rejuvenate stalled budget talks hit a glitch Wednesday over House Republicans' unwillingness to recall furloughed federal workers, White House chief of staff Leon Panetta said.
In a morning of shuttle diplomacy between Capitol meeting rooms, Panetta talked with House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees.Their goal was to set a schedule and an agenda for talks leading to agreement on a seven-year, balanced budget by New Year's Day. Wednesday's sessions were to pave the way for another round of face-to-face discussions between President Clinton, Gingrich, R-Ga., and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan.
"Obviously some problems have developed with our ability to get the principals to the table," Panetta told reporters outside Gingrich's office.
Panetta said Republicans had agreed Tuesday night that if the two sides could set a schedule and an agenda for negotiating a balanced budget, then Congress would pass a temporary spending measure to recall an estimated 260,000 furloughed federal employees and restart operations at nine partially shut-down Cabinet agencies.
"It appears that there are members (in the House) that oppose that approach," Panetta said.
About an hour before the discussions fizzled, GOP House freshmen had held a news conference in which they declared they were adamant about balancing the budget using Congressional Budget Office economic estimates that will require deeper spending cuts.
"Prior Congresses would have cooked the books with a wink and a smile and claimed victory. We will not do that," said Rep. Jon Fox, R-Pa.
Panetta said he would report back to the president and try to find away around the new impasse.
"We're continuing to try to make an effort to see if we can bridge these problems and again try to get these negotiations started on balancing the budget," he said. "We just have to continue to see if we can try to find a way to get there."
Earlier, Gingrich had pronounced Tuesday's two-hour White House session with Clinton "a very useful and very important step in the right direction." Dole called it "very productive."
The protracted struggle between congressional Republicans and the president over Medicare and Medicaid savings, spending cuts and tax reductions has shut down parts of the government twice within a month - once for six days in November. Wednesday was the fifth day of the latest closing.
GOP freshmen, at their news conference, said remarks of Vice President Al Gore cast doubt on the administration's sincerity.
Gingrich had said Clinton had agreed to personally participate in talks, to use the CBO economic estimates and to finish negotiating by New Year's Eve.
But Gore had called Gingrich's statement on the CBO estimates a "slight misunderstanding" and said Clinton would not be re-con-fig-ur-ing his latest proposal using CBO estimates. Rather, any new proposals tabled in the discussions would be estimated by the CBO, and the ultimate result of the talks would use the CBO projections, he said.
Gore also said the New Year's deadline wasn't fixed. The administration, he said, wants to strike a deal "as quickly as possible, and if it is possible to complete it by the end of the year, we want to do that."
Freshman Rep. Ed Bryant, R-Tenn., called Gore's comments "simply incredible."
"What this administration is using is the good cop-bad cop idea. Well, I guess yesterday was the vice president's turn to be the bad cop," he said.
The tentative steps toward reigniting discussions occurred after tough talk at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday.
Clinton vetoed his third GOP spending bill in two days. The latest would have funded the departments of Commerce, State and Justice. But the president said it would undermine his effort to put 100,000 new police officers on the streets.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Medigap rates rising
Rates for more than 3 million retirees who buy private insurance to supplement Medicare will climb by an average of 30 percent next month. The Prudential Insurance Co., which sells Medigap policies through the American Association of Retired Persons, said the increase was brought on because elderly customers are filing more claims for services. The private policies pick up the cost of the first day in the hospital, a portion of doctor bills and other charges that Medicare does not pay. Lania Peterson, a Prudential manager in Fort Washington, Pa., said the actual increases will vary from state to state. They also will vary depending on which of the 10 different Medigap policies a person buys.