House Approves Balanced Budget Plan Gingrich Compares Gop Measure With ‘Great Society’ It Is Reversing
The aggressive new House Republican majority passed a history-making plan Thursday to balance the federal budget within seven years and overhaul a generation of government programs that have looked to Washington to redress the nation’s most pressing social problems.
Facing the threat of a presidential veto, the House, by a 227-203 margin, passed a $1 trillion measure that would draw $452 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid, offer $245 billion in tax cuts and shift traditional federal power and programs to the states.
The victory was sweet satisfaction for House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who compared the GOP budget plan with the Democrats’ “Great Society” initiatives of the 1960s in terms of reshaping the federal government and the nation.
“We are making history,” Gingrich said after the vote.
Four Democrats voted for the GOP measure, while 10 Republicans opposed it. Five lawmakers did not vote.
With passage of a similar measure expected in the Senate today, the two versions will head to a joint House-Senate conference, where significant differences will be ironed out before a single bill is sent to President Clinton’s desk.
After Clinton’s anticipated veto, perhaps sometime around Thanksgiving, earnest negotiations between the president and the GOP-controlled Congress are expected to begin.
For jubilant Republicans, Thursday’s vote meant keeping their 1994 campaign promise to shrink the federal government, return money to taxpayers and balance the nation’s books.
“For 60 years, the ship of state of this great land has sailed in the wrong direction - to the left, in the direction of big government, big taxation, big regulation,” said House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas.
Democrats argued that GOP lawmakers are bent on wrecking the Medicare system and de-funding social programs to pay for a tax-cut plan for more affluent Americans.
“This budget presents a clear and very different vision between the two (political) parties,” said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. “This budget is morally wrong, economically wrong, and it’s wrong for the country.”
As Republicans pledged to “save” Medicare from insolvency and shrink the federal deficit, Democrats pounded away at the notion that GOP lawmakers are punishing the poor and the middle class while rewarding their political patrons.
“The better-off will be a little better-off today,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas.
But Republicans, irked by a New York Times/CBS News survey Thursday that showed growing public resistance to their budget plans, weren’t buying the argument.
“This legislation provides American families with the tax relief they deserve,” said a statement released by Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash.
“In the best interests of America, the President should support this measure,” he added. “He has promised the American people a balanced budget for two years and now he has his first opportunity to sign one, I hope he shows all of us he is willing to put America’s future ahead of politics.”
Before the vote on the GOP meas ure, the House overwhelmingly rejected a compromise budget plan offered by conservative Democrats. It was defeated, 356-72.
A similar “common sense budget,” which calls for a balanced budget in 2002 without tax cuts and with smaller cuts in social programs, is expected to be offered in the Senate today, with Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., as a cosponsor.
Throughout the day, GOP leaders met with edgy lawmakers, calming their fears of troubles back home by offering billions more in funding for Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for the poor and disabled.
Gingrich and his Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Bob Dole, pledged to “fix” a number of GOP concerns in the conference, including provisions that phased out many farm subsidies and price supports.
One of the House bill’s most controversial provisions assumes $10.2 billion in savings from sweeping changes in federal student loan programs.
On welfare, the House claims $90 billion in savings over seven years through ending the federal government’s guarantee of financial support for poor families.
The measure ends cash benefits after five years, imposes work requirements on recipients and limits aid to legal immigrants.
Unlike the Senate version, the House bill also shifts responsibility for school-lunch, foster-care care and nutrition programs to states. And, with the so-called “family cap,” it prohibits cash support for single teenage mothers who have more children while on welfare.
Medicaid would be transformed into a block-grant program, with anticipated savings of $182 billion by 2002, cutting annual spending growth from 10 percent to about 5 percent.
The House tax-cut plan extends a $500-per-child tax credit to families earning up to $200,000 and reduces the so-called “marriage penalty.”
It effectively halves the capital-gains tax on the sale of assets and expands the use of individual retirement accounts.
The $270 billion in Medicare savings comes through increased costs for some beneficiaries, cuts in payments to hospitals, doctors and other health-care providers and by encouraging seniors to move into private, managed-care insurance plans.
For Medicare beneficiaries, the current $46.10 monthly premium would rise to $54 next January, and up to $89 by 2002.
Under the House bill, wealthier retirees would pay higher premiums as their subsidies are eliminated, but the annual Medicare deductible would stay at $100.
Other highlights of the House bill:
Cuts the earned income tax credit for the working poor by $23 billion over seven years.
Eliminates federal health and safety standards for nursing homes. In the Senate, Dole has pledged to try to restore the standards, established in 1987.
Opens the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to gas and oil leasing, generating a projected $1.3 billion in revenue.
xxxx How they voted Here’s how Northwest representatives voted on the spending bill: Idaho: Republicans Helen Chenoweth and Mike Crapo voted yes. Washington: Republicans Jennifer Dunn, Doc Hastings, Jack Metcalf, George Nethercutt, Linda Smith, Randy Tate and Rick White voted yes. Democrats Norm Dicks and Jim McDermott voted no.