WASHINGTON — Republicans are weighing whether to push toward a compromise that would end their final budget showdown with President Clinton, a battle over school spending, immigration and other issues that has forced a lame-duck Congress to return to the Capitol this week.
House GOP lawmakers were meeting Tuesday to discuss whether to end their long-running budget standoff with the outgoing president. Senate Republicans were expected to hold similar conversations, and further negotiations were possible Wednesday.
The two sides emerged from a 90-minute bargaining session in the Oval Office Monday evening saying positive things after Clinton offered proposals aimed at ending their long-running budget standoff. This included an offer to trim $1 billion to $2 billion from an $18 billion increase for education, health and labor programs that the two sides' bargainers had tentatively reached last month, said a Democrat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"There was a willingness on all sides to work together to try to narrow the remaining differences," White House spokesman Elliot Diringer said after Monday's meeting. "Everyone pledged to use the next couple of days to see if we can pull together agreements and wrap things up this week."
Republicans said a final agreement on the budget was possible this week, but said differences remained and that rank-and-file sentiment would have to be judged.
"We'll be talking to our senators and go from there," said Susan Irby, spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
Also attending Monday's meeting were House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.; House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas; House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo.; and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
To give negotiators time to work, the two sides agreed to push a measure through Congress on Tuesday temporarily keeping agencies open through Thursday. The current short-term bill keeping agencies' doors open expires Tuesday night.
Even so, underlining that major hurdles remained, an adviser to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said DeLay was arguing "very strongly" that instead of reaching a compromise, Congress should demand that spending in the unfinished bills be held to last year's levels, which officials have said could save $15 billion this year. The adviser spoke on condition of anonymity.
DeLay's position showed that amid confusion and high partisan feelings from the disputed presidential election between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, it was hard to judge whether lawmakers from the two parties would be ready to cut a deal.
The two sides' budget disputes have left four must-pass spending bills overdue by two months and paralyzed efforts to cut taxes, boost Medicare payments to health care providers and raise the federal minimum wage. Those battles have prevented completion of a $1.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2001, which began Oct. 1.
One of the biggest fights was over a compromise $350 billion measure for education, labor and health programs that budget bargainers had agreed to last month. House GOP leaders quickly rejected it, saying its record $18 billion increase was too expensive.
Hoping to pressure Republicans, Clinton and top administration officials have focused on the $7.9 billion increase the compromise would have delivered to this year's $34 billion education budget.
Other fights concern a Clinton administration rule aimed at reducing workplace injuries, which many business organizations have opposed, and an effort by Clinton to ease immigration restrictions on more than 1 million immigrants.
Also lingering is a $240 billion, 10-year tax cut for many small businesses, people with various pensions and some families with health care costs.
Attached to that measure is $30 billion worth of higher Medicare reimbursements over the next decade for health-maintenance organizations, hospitals and other health care providers, plus a phased-in $1 increase in the $5.15 hourly minimum wage.
Clinton has threatened to veto the tax measure because he says it is too generous to health-maintenance groups and small businesses.
As part of a final deal, part of that bill could be approved. Lott said the increased Medicare reimbursements are "the only thing in that bill we must do."