WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators were down to the last few sticking points as they approached a compromise on remaining spending bills that finally would conclude the overextended session.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said the tentative deal being worked out was acceptable to most in his party, despite some grumbling about cuts to defense programs. Lott said he hoped to pass the legislation Thursday or Friday.
The general attitude, he said, is: "Look, let's quit reaching for all we would like to have; let's see if we could agree on what we must do."
The White House also backed the general spending levels in the proposed compromise, although some Democrats were unhappy that some education programs might get trimmed.
Both sides said the momentum was toward wrapping up work on four unfinished spending bills for fiscal year 2001. They cover a broad area of education, labor and health programs and the departments of Commerce, Justice, State and Treasury, along with dozens of smaller agencies. Congress originally hoped to finish the session in October.
Since Oct. 1, when the fiscal year began, Congress has had to pass 20 short-term spending bills to avoid a repeat of the government shutdowns of the winter of 1995-96.
The breakthrough came Monday, when President Clinton and congressional leaders agreed to spend $108.9 billion on education, health and labor programs. That is part of a $350 billion spending bill that also includes automatic benefits for Medicaid and other federal programs.
The deal provided $3.7 billion less than a tentative agreement on the education-health bill reached before the election but $13 billion more than last year.
The bill has been an annual area of contention between Republicans trying to hold down spending and the administration seeking money to hire teachers and repair rundown schools.
Monday's deal also included an additional $1 billion in across-the-board cuts to programs outside health and education, with almost half coming from defense programs.
"You could hear a pin drop" when this was explained to Republican senators Tuesday, said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He said he "raised tremendous objections" to the cuts, amounting to about 0.2 percent of the defense budget.
Still being discussed was how to divide up the $3.7 billion in cuts to the education-health bill. Democrats are reluctant to accept any cuts to their top priorities of hiring new teachers and modernizing rundown schools. Lawmakers from both sides are resisting cuts to National Institutes of Health research programs.
Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., said the budget agreement tentatively included the bulk of a 10-year, $25.2 billion series of tax breaks passed by the House and backed by President Clinton that is intended to boost investment and create jobs in poverty-stricken areas.
It also has a five-year increase in Medicare reimbursements to health care providers of at least $30 billion and at least $1.7 billion more for rural health and other Medicare coverage.
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