Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spending Issues Set Up Battles In House, Senate

Tom Raum Associated Press

President Clinton and the Republican Congress have circled each other warily on government spending issues since the year began. But push is likely to come to shove this week, as Clinton’s priority spending items head for showdown votes in the House and the Senate.

Fights over abortion, whether to nibble at an expected budget surplus, U.S. foreign policy and the leadership of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund are all in the offing.

A $2.5 billion midyear spending bill, in which Clinton seeks funds to support military missions in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf, as well as spending for emergency relief for El Nino-related weather disasters, comes to a vote this week in the Senate and in a House committee.

Meanwhile, a separate bill that would pay about $1 billion in back dues to the United Nations and authorize some $18 billion for the International Monetary Fund is headed for a House floor vote. But an unrelated amendment imposing abortion restrictions on overseas family planning groups already has generated a presidential veto threat.

In the Senate, a bill containing IMF funds includes a provision - opposed by the Clinton administration - that would impose structural changes on the international financial agency, whose main task right now is to help rescue ailing Asian economies.

The IMF and the United Nations have become favorite targets for conservatives.

In fact, House Republican leaders have been struggling to line up support for the bill to pay the U.N. dues not because of the abortion restrictions that the administration finds so objectionable - but because more than a few conservatives oppose giving the United Nations the money altogether.

“The whole issue comes down to a profound reluctance to support the U.N.,” said Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., sponsor of the amendment that would prohibit U.S. funds from being used to support any international organizations that perform or promotes abortions.