CONGRESSIONAL END GAME

	October 10, 2000
	Kwame Holman reports on what Congress is accomplishing as members prepare to wrap up the session.

GWEN IFILL: As election day draws closer, members of Congress are trying to wrap up the legislative year so they can go home and campaign. Kwame Holman looks at what they've accomplished so far. KWAME HOLMAN: Congressional Democrats gathered two weeks ago to give a hero's welcome to Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Lieberman, and wildly applaud their House and Senate leaders Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle. They sounded almost as if the election already were over, and they had kept control of the White House and regained the majority in Congress. REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: It's a beautiful day to be out here with the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Lieberman. (Cheers and applause) KWAME HOLMAN: And Democrats say they're in a good position to reach their election goals because their legislative priorities are popular with voters, with a prescription drug benefit for seniors at the top of the list. REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: This year, House Republicans refused to let us in the House even vote...even get a vote on a Democratic plan through Medicare; a plan that would be voluntary, a plan that would be universal, and a plan that would help senior citizens where they need help first. It was wrong to deny us that vote. I hope and believe we can pass the Medicare plan in this Congress. ( Cheers) KWAME HOLMAN: Just 48 hours earlier, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott opened a private strategy session to remind the media of their willingness to negotiate on the prescription drug issue. REP. DENNIS HASTERT: As you all know, we wrote to the President earlier this week and asked him... And said, "you know, we can work together. There are things we can really work together to get done, especially on the prescription drug issue. We're willing to do that." The President had rejected and said he didn't want to do the prescription drugs for seniors unless he did it for all seniors. Unfortunately, he still doesn't recognize the fact that we can get together on prescription drugs, provide what's needed to our low-income needy seniors now and not make it something that would be available to the wealthiest of the wealthy in this country. KWAME HOLMAN: Despite the rallies and rhetoric, the fact is it's highly unlikely there will be an agreement on a prescription drug benefit program before Congress adjourns for the year. Members are focused almost entirely on completing work on the 13 appropriations bills they need to get signed into law before they go home to campaign for reelection. REP. MARK SANFORD: There is a rush for the door, and you basically get stampeded if you're holding things up based on some policy consideration. KWAME HOLMAN: South Carolina Republican Mark Sanford is one member who won't be rushing home to campaign. He's leaving Congress after six years in the House. But Sanford, a strict fiscal conservative, is disturbed by the expensive deal-making that's accompanying the rush to adjourn. REP. MARK SANFORD: I think it was John McCain that said what we have is equal opportunity pork. Folks on both sides of the aisle are very guilty right now of basically trampling the taxpayer in their run for the door and closing up shop in the Congress. You know, if you look at the ramp-up in domestic discretionary spending, which is the part of spending that the Congress basically controls, it has been dramatic over this last year. The budget that we are going to end up coming out of Congress with, is above what the President proposed at the beginning of the year. So we spent weeks debating - you know - no, we can't have this additional $30 billion worth of expenditure - and yet, we're going to end up basically doubling that. KWAME HOLMAN: A month ago, President Clinton and the Democrats sat with the Republican congressional leadership. The President predicted how the appropriations process would play out. PRESIDENT CLINTON: Every year we've had a fight, both sides have honestly said what they thought, and then at the end we found a way to come together and pass a budget that was good for the American people. KWAME HOLMAN: But within two weeks there was President Clinton blaming Republicans for allowing a run-up in spending. PRESIDENT CLINTON: I am concerned, frankly, about the size and last-minute nature of this year's congressional spending spree, where they seem to be loading up the spending bills with special projects for special interests, but can't seem to find the time to raise the minimum wage or pass the patients' bill of rights or drug benefits for our seniors through Medicare, or tax cuts for long-term care, child care or a college education. KWAME HOLMAN: Congressional Republicans, in turn, blamed the President. REP. TOM DeLAY: The President yesterday accused us of going on a Republican spending spree. That is the most outrageous statement I've heard yet. We've been negotiating with the white House. They want more spending. The President is not part of the spending problem; he is the problem. The President continues to threaten vetoes over these spending bills because there's not enough spending in them. I haven't heard a single veto threat from the President yet because of any of these bills spends too much. KWAME HOLMAN: As September ended, Congress and the President were forced to agree on a one-week, catch-all spending bill, called a continuing resolution, to keep the government running at current spending levels beyond October 1. That was the first day of the new fiscal year. They did it again last week. Continuing resolutions have become something of a tradition this time of year. REP. DAVID OBEY: Some people in this body and even those who report on this body are beginning to believe that legislative train derailments have become as much a part of autumn as football. And I think we have to ask: Why? REP. JACK KINGSTON: You know, the fact is as a member of the Appropriations Committee, we're in a cycle now that we go through every year. And each side tends to rattle its rhetorical saber. They are blaming all the problems on the other side. The reality is we just need a little bit more time. KWAME HOLMAN: Missouri Democrat Pat Danner, leaving Congress after eight years in the House, says the slowdown in approving the spending bills this year was inevitable. REP.PAT DANNER: As you know, the House and senate are so close in the number of votes that if a few people from one party move over and vote with the other party, then things really come to an impasse and that's what can happen, and what has happened. KWAME HOLMAN: Danner suspects President Clinton bears responsibility as well. REP. PAT DANNER: I think that because President Clinton is eager to leave a legacy, that perhaps he may hold off more than he might have otherwise, since this is his last year as President. And so I think that it's going to be one of those cases of who blinks first. JOHN PODESTA: We've made our positions clear and we are trying to see if we can resolve this bill through the course of the day or maybe into tomorrow. KWAME HOLMAN: John Podesta is President Clinton's chief of staff. His job over the past few weeks has been to push the President's spending priorities during closed-door negotiations with the Republican majority in Congress. As for Pat Danner, she's just sorry she has to return home to Missouri with little to show for her last session in Congress. REP. PAT DANNER: Well, you know, as we approach Halloween, it occurs to me that we're not going to be giving very many treats to the American public; we're not going to give them campaign finance reform; we're not going to give them patients' bill of right's we're not going to give the prescription drugs for seniors, and then two bills that are particularly important to me-a marriage tax penalty and estate tax relief, in which I was the Democrat co-sponsor -- they're not going to become law. KWAME HOLMAN: Despite fairly broad bipartisan support for repeal of the marriage penalty and the estate tax, both bills were vetoed by President Clinton, and Republicans couldn't muster enough support from Democrats to override the President. Republican Mark Sanford says the failure of such legislation is not rely unwelcome by either party. He uses the example of a potential compromise he offered his leadership on cutting estate taxes. REP. MARK SANFORD: For instance, if you look at estate repeal, a number us said, you know, the blue dog Democrats were talking about raising the unified credit to, I think $4 million or so, and a number have said that's probably workable. And yet ultimately leadership said, "no, we'd rather use it as a wedge issue in the November elections." Yes. KWAME HOLMAN: Two weeks ago, Democrats rolled out empty prescription bottles to dramatize the lack of movement on a drug benefit for seniors. It's one of several proposals that will remain alive, but only as campaign issues for both Republicans and Democrats straight through to election day.