In session: October 2001

In Session
October 2001

Budget surplus evaporates under new spending demands
Confronting new realities in Washington—an interview with Network's Sister Kathy Thornton, RSM
Emergency spending approved in response to terror attacks, economic weakness
Fast track authority advanced as anti-terrorism measure
New farm bill debated
New military spending swiftly approved
Pressure for swift passage of new security measures

New military spending swiftly approved
Military personnel would get their largest pay raise in two decades, development of a missile shield would continue and a new round of base closures would be permitted under legislation the Senate approved on October 2.

The bill to authorize $345 billion in defense programs in the current fiscal year gives President Bush just about everything he had sought before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The total approved is $35 billion more than what Congress agreed to a year ago, an 11 percent increase. That is one of the most significant jumps in defense spending since the military buildup of the mid-1980s.

Those figures do not include the Pentagon's yet-undetermined share of a $40 billion emergency-spending package Congress approved shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And many lawmakers expect even more defense spending will be proposed as soon as the nation mobilizes for what could be a long and costly war on terrorism.

The House approved similar legislation on a 398-17 vote Sept. 25. The two versions must be reconciled before a bill can be sent to the White House.

Both bills authorize a 5 percent pay increase for military personnel, the largest since 1982. Some enlisted personnel and officers would be eligible for raises of up to 10 percent. Those raises would follow a 3.7 percent pay increase approved last year for more than 1.3 million active-duty personnel, after reports that some military families had to go on welfare to make ends meet.

Like the House-approved bill, the Senate bill includes a substantial increase in the budget for research, development, testing and evaluation of ballistic missile-defense systems. The House would spend $7.9 billion on such programs in fiscal 2002, up from $5.3 billion the year before; the Senate, as much as $8.3 billion. Under the Senate bill, however, the president would be allowed to spend up to $1.3 billion of that amount on counterterrorism programs instead.
Back to page top

New spending approved in response
to terror attacks, economic weakness
President Bush is seeking a $60 to $75 billion stimulus package to encourage consumer confidence and bolster business investment. Congress has previously approved $40 billion in emergency spending for disaster relief and a $15 billion bailout plan for the airline industry following the New York and Washington terrorist attacks.

Republicans are at odds over tax cuts and rebates, with Democrats favoring rebates on payroll taxes and Republicans favoring business tax cuts to stimulate investment.

Bush is seeking an additional $3 billion to extend unemployment benefits and provide emergency aid to workers laid off because of the assaults.

Unemployment benefits will be extended by 13 weeks in states hit hardest by the attacks, Bush told Labor Department employees. He also used the appearance at the department to encourage states to sign up children for a government-run health care program. The program already has roughly $11 billion available and unclaimed by the states.

Even though the administration request for the stimulus package must be approved by Congress, it is unlikely to face stiff opposition. The Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, suggested a $50 billion spending package.

"This is deficit spending once again and its very disconcerting to many of us," Daschle told the New York Times. "But I don't know that there's an alternative. We are in an economic and military and security emergency."
Back to page top

Pressure for swift passage of new security measures
The Bush administration and its Republican allies in the Senate have sharply increased pressure on Senate Democrats to act more quickly on antiterrorism legislation.

A compromise agreement has already passed in the House of Representatives. The House bill would give law enforcement authorities wider powers to wiretap suspected terrorists, share intelligence about them throughout the government and make it easier to seize their assets. But Democratic and Republican negotiators in the House have scaled back or dropped several provisions sought by the White House, notably the ability to detain foreign nationals suspected of terrorism indefinitely. Under the compromise, authorities could detain terrorism suspects for a maximum of seven days, after which they would have to be released or charged with a crime.

The package was reached after agreement that most of the expanded wiretap authorities would expire at the end of 2003, a so-called sunset provision, unless Congress explicitly renewed them.
Back to page top

Budget surplus evaporates under new spending demands
A federal budget spending ceiling, once sacrosanct, broke October 2 under pressure of new appropriations.

After hovering on the verge of a deal for more than a week, Bush and congressional appropriators agreed to let Congress spend $25 billion more than earlier agreed this year - mostly to cover Bush's $18.4 billion request for defense. The deal also sets aside $4 billion more for education, as Democrats wanted.

The budget deal underscores the White House's desire to avoid partisan bickering at a time when Bush is seeking to unify the nation and sustain support from Congress in the war on terrorism. It also illustrates how differently federal spending is perceived in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The agreement lets Congress readjust defense and education spending bills. It does not include $55 billion in emergency spending already approved by Congress in response to the terrorism, which is counted outside the agreed spending ceiling.

Together, these additional expenditures could bring the government close to using up all available surpluses, including Social Security's. The proposed economic stimulus under consideration by Bush and Congress could mean a return to deficit spending.
Back to page top

Fast track authority advanced as anti-terrorism measure
House lawmakers announced a compromise agreement on October 4 that would give President Bush the authority to negotiate trade accords with limited Congressional involvement, a tool the Bush administration says will help it recruit allies in the fight against terrorism.

House Republicans said an agreement with several moderate Democrats allowed them to schedule a committee vote on expanded trade negotiating powers, known as trade promotion authority or "fast track" authority, on October 5, with a full House vote coming as soon as the following week.

The bill includes language that supporters say breaks new ground on incorporating traditionally Democratic concerns about labor rights and the environment into trade agreements. But it still faces strong opposition from Democratic leaders in the House, including the minority leader, Representative Richard Gephardt, and it would also have to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, has argued that after the terrorist attacks the administration needs expanded trade power to help build the alliance against terrorism. The United States needs to counter "threats to our security" by offering "economic hope" to poor nations.

The administration is seeking to start a worldwide round of trade negotiations at a summit meeting in Doha, Qatar, in November and has argued that new trade powers would give American negotiators leverage to cut a better deal. There are continuing efforts to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement across Latin America and bring Russia into the World Trade Organization, goals that administration officials say would be easier to achieve with the new authority.

Most House Democrats have tended to oppose trade promotion authority, once known as fast track. They argue that it unduly restricts Congressional prerogatives to make sure that trade agreements do not undermine United States interests by impinging on its sovereign laws or subjecting American workers to unfair competition from abroad.

Enhanced trade powers were last approved by Congress in 1988, setting the stage for Nafta. President Bill Clinton's attempts to revive this authority failed repeatedly. Such trade authority usually extends for as long as seven years, or five years with a two-year renewal.

The new compromise agreement contains language that supporters say would compel the president to address labor rights and the environment within the main text of any trade agreement, ensuring that nations do not degrade their own laws to gain a trade advantage.

But some Democrats, unions and environmental groups remain wary. They say the bill's language on labor and the environment remains too weak and that the bill does not grant Congress enough oversight.
Back to page top

New farm bill debated
The House is considering a historic shift in farm spending that would switch some crop subsidies into conservation payments that reward farmers for leaving acreage idle or improving environmental practices.

Groups representing grain and cotton growers oppose the proposal, which would primarily benefit dairy-producing regions and states in the East and West that traditionally have received relatively little farm assistance. An amendment to a $170 billion farm bill that the House was to debate Thursday would shift $19 billion from planned crop subsidies into conservation programs.

The next farm bill—H.R. 2646 , "Farm Security Act"—will determine U.S. food and farm policy for the next 5 to 10 years

Environmentalists were buoyed by a recent White House statement that criticized the farm bill and urged lawmakers to put more money into conservation programs. The administration said the legislation would encourage continued overproduction of crops and benefit the nation's largest farms.

Major farm groups so dislike the conservation proposal that the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Larry Combest, R-Texas, has threatened to shelve the bill if the amendment were to be approved. Aides expressed confidence that it would not be.

The bill would guarantee a steady flow of money over the next decade to the grain and cotton growers that have traditionally received most federal farm payments. It also provides new subsidies to peanut farmers and revives honey and wool supports that were abolished in the 1990s.

The bill would boost commodity programs by $50 billion, or 65 percent, over the decade and conservation spending would grow by $16 billion, or nearly 75 percent. Environmental groups say the increase in conservation programs is inadequate, and they also oppose a rise in payment limits that would allow large livestock operations to qualify for assistance in cleaning up manure problems.

A vote Wednesday afternoon indicated the administration was failing to sway a significant number of lawmakers in its effort to limit payments. The House rejected 238-187 an amendment that would have imposed strict $150,000-per-person limit on crop subsidies, which would have saved $1.3 billion over 10 years.

The bill would replace a 1996 law that was supposed to wean farmers from government payments. Grain prices subsequently collapsed, however, and Congress has since approved billions in additional aid.The National Catholic Rural Life Conference is urging citizens to contact their House representatives to ask them to vote "No" on H.R. 2646. The NCRLC says the bill should be returned to the floor for more debate and that in its current form it:

Would subsidize huge factory farms. The EQIP—Environmental Quality Incentives Program—would be turned into a program that funds large-scale confined animal feeding operations. EQIP should not fund big companies to clean up their own factory farm messes.
Would increase subsidies to the nation’s largest farms. The bill keeps in place existing loopholes that do nothing to keep small and medium-size farmers on their land.
Would gut the Wetlands Reserve Program and destroy the Swampbuster provision.
There are many more problems with this bill. See www.ncrlc.com for more information or visit www.sustainableagriculture.net.

For more info:
White House statement:
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman's statement:
House committee:

Back to page top