Clinton Again Pushes Congress for Budget Deal

WASHINGTON — President Clinton sought again Saturday to prod Congress toward a budget accord, calling on Republicans to “work with me” to produce a plan that bolsters Social Security, reduces the national debt and funds several key administration programs while providing modest tax cuts.

But House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) quickly made clear that GOP leaders are disinclined, for now at least, to take up Clinton on his offer. He derided the president’s bid to salvage some programs while accepting smaller tax cuts than Republicans wanted as “a fool’s choice” that would be “a bad deal for the American people.”

The Saturday radio speeches by Clinton and Hastert gave the two sides in the budget dispute a chance to frame the debate in the wake of the president’s veto last week of the $792-billion tax cut bill Republicans narrowly pushed through Congress.

With the federal fiscal year starting Friday and Congress struggling to craft the major spending bills needed to keep the government operating, Clinton said it is time for a bipartisan effort to fund programs.

Clinton said the GOP “continues on a track that doesn’t adequately fund America’s real priorities.” He assailed the Republicans for using “budget gimmicks” to spend Social Security money clandestinely, adding that “they’re still not providing nearly enough for education and other vital priorities.”

He singled out for criticism one proposed appropriations bill that, while giving states more flexibility in spending federal education funds, would deny money for Clinton’s programs to hire more teachers and modernize schools.

The president said of the Republicans: “The very same day I vetoed their budget-busting tax plan, they passed a bill out of committee that would seriously undermine our efforts to strengthen education.”

Hastert, in turn, argued that Republicans are “working hard to bring some old-fashioned common sense to the way that the government works.”

Signaling the party’s shift in priorities following the veto of the tax cut bill, Hastert pledged that the GOP would focus on protecting the Social Security Trust Fund, which past Congresses routinely used to fund other programs, and doing its part to reduce the national debt.