Gop’s Not United On Next Budget Step Force New, Modified Shutdown Or Extend Spending A Week?

With a year’s labor in jeopardy, Republicans appeared split Tuesday on the wisdom of using a pre-Christmas shutdown of government agencies to force President Clinton to agree to a seven-year balanced budget.

Temporary spending authority for several federal agencies is set to expire Friday at midnight. But this round, any closure of them would seem more like a government slowdown than a shutdown.

More than 80 percent of federal workers would stay on the job. And except for some unlucky holiday tourists, most Americans wouldn’t notice that the workers were missing - at least not right away.

This time, Social Security and veterans offices would stay open with their normal number of employees to help people applying for benefits, officials said Tuesday. That should alleviate some hardships caused by the last shutdown.

Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole told reporters Tuesday he favors a simple one-week extension of spending authority to Dec. 22. That would give negotiators for the White House and Republicans additional time to try and fashion a balanced budget accord without closing any federal offices.

“Extend it for a week,” he told reporters of the Dec. 15 expiration of temporary spending authority that Congress approved in November. “If we can’t agree, we’ll do something else.”

A few hours later, he addressed the subject anew. “I don’t know whether it’s a week, a day or an hour,” he said of extending government spending authority. “It depends on good faith by both sides, that’s the key.”

It’s up to the House to originate such a bill, however, and GOP sources said there was strong opposition to simply extending the Dec. 15 deadline when the subject came up at a closed-door meeting of Speaker Newt Gingrich and members of the House GOP leadership.

According to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, Gingrich said the three Republican senators running for president ought to realize it’s in their interest to force the issue to a conclusion.

Dole, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana and Texas Sen. Phil Gramm are all vying for the GOP presidential nomination, and sources said that House Majority Leader Richard Armey, another Texan, interjected that he was certain Gramm favored forcing a confrontation.