Congress in weekend sessions as budget battle rages

WASHINGTON - President Clinton called for negotiation and compromise Saturday to resolve a nasty budget war over taxes, immigration and education that forced Congress into a rare weekend session just 10 days from the presidential and congressional elections.

Citing bipartisan compromise on a number of recent bills, Clinton said: I'm not trying to provoke a confrontation. All I'm trying is to get the job done here.

''I'm not trying to harass them,'' the president said, responding to complaints by Republican leaders as he appeared in the White House briefing room. ''I'm just trying to get them to finish their job and go home.''

But he added: ''The real problem here is that the right wing of the Republican caucus has not permitted a compromise'' on the last few remaining bills, including education and tax relief.

He said such compromise has proved possible on other pieces of important legislation, including an agricultural appropriations bill which he signed on Saturday. He called that bills,on balance, good for all Americans even though he said he disagreed with parts of it.

Clinton said he is still hopeful a compromise solution can be crafted.

''If we make an agreement tonight they could go home on Monday,'' the president said.

The House voted 339-7 Saturday to approve another one-day bill to keep government agencies from closing and rekindling voters' memories of the 1995-96 shutdowns.

The Senate followed quickly with a 67-2 vote for the measure, which was needed because only six of the 13 must-pass spending bills for fiscal 2001, which began Oct. 1, have become law. Congress will have to meet again Sunday to approve another daylong extension.

Budget bargainers also planned to meet both days in hopes of bridging gaps over the remaining pieces of the $1.8 trillion federal budget. But with members of each party itching to draw partisan distinctions and eager to return home for campaigning, neither side wasted chances to lambast the other.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said Clinton's insistence on daily votes to keep the government open was ''harassment.''

At the White House, press secretary Jake Siewert disagreed.

''We're asking them to stay and work,'' Siewert said. ''We're available to work. We're available to negotiate.''

Republicans also accused Clinton of playing politics by issuing veto threats on two bills that contain many items Democrats demanded.

''It's a shame that this thing gets sacrificed in the face of politics because there are some really important things the president wanted,'' said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Clinton accused the GOP of fashioning bills without Democratic input that serve ''the elements in the right-wing of their caucus,'' and said he would not back down.

''I will not bend over backwards to be run over, not because of me or the Democrats in Congress, but because it's not good for the American people,'' he declared.

Leaders scheduled votes for Tuesday, which would surpass Oct. 28, 1990, as the closest Congress has ever worked up to Election Day, which this year falls on Nov. 7. Lawmakers have often returned after elections to complete work, but in those years they always began a break by mid-October.

In a 49-42 vote Friday, the Senate gave final congressional approval to a $39.9 billion bill financing the Commerce, Justice and State departments that Clinton has promised to veto, chiefly because it fails to liberalize immigration laws as much as he wants.

With both sides insisting the battle would help them with Hispanic voters and others, White House officials said the veto would come quickly. That would likely trigger intensified negotiations on the bill.

Clinton wants to help up to 2 million immigrants, including amnesty for those who arrived illegally before 1986. Republicans would help half that many people by easing restrictions on relatives of permanent residents and letting others with decade-old immigration disputes go to court.

GOP leaders held off on a final Senate vote on a separate bill that would cut taxes for health care costs, small businesses and others by $240 billion over 10 years.

That measure - which would also boost the minimum wage and eliminate $30 billion in planned Medicare cuts for health care providers - also faces a veto threat because Clinton says it shortchanges school construction and low-income families and is overly generous to health maintenance organizations.

Republican leaders said they had less flexibility to bargain on the tax bill because it would be too difficult to get GOP support for changes.

At the White House on Friday, Clinton signed spending bills for veterans, housing, energy and water programs.

Amid the verbal battling, White House and congressional negotiators sought middle ground on a $350 billion measure financing labor, health and education programs.

The two sides moved Friday toward providing roughly $4.4 billion more for hiring teachers and other Democratic priorities in the measure, participants said. There also would be an additional $600 million for programs Republicans want.

But gaps remained over specifics, including a GOP effort to block the administration from imposing rules, opposed by business, aimed at reducing workplace injuries.

Bargainers also faced a deluge of lawmakers' requests - 235 by one list - for late add-ons to the bills, from Internet gambling legislation to $1.7 million for an Oklahoma land-rush memorial.

The tax measure contains reductions aimed at encouraging investments in poor urban and rural communities, helping people with long-term care and health expenses and aiding people who various pension savings plans. It also would boost the current $5.15 hourly minimum wage by $1 by January 2002.