WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission, one of the government agencies GOP lawmakers beat up on much of 1995, could be brought to its knees this year if stalled budget talks collapse completely and Republican congressional leaders shift to a strategy of fully funding programs they like and gradually downsizing-or eliminating altogether-those they disapprove of.
With House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and other GOP budget negotiators continuing to express pessimism about reaching a deal with the Clinton administration on a seven-year balanced budget plan and negotiations stalled last week, the prospect for putting the targeted appropriations strategy into play on a large scale becomes very real.
Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.) and House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas), following a 40-minute telephone conversation with the president, abruptly called off last Wednesday’s scheduled resumption of budget talks with White House officials and said negotiations would not start up again until Clinton offers a new proposal.
Clinton, who has seen public opinion turn on the GOP-led Congress during the budget crisis, insists a deal can be brokered “in 15 minutes” if Republicans moderate proposed cuts in social entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The president is expected to capitalize on that theme in his State of the Union address tomorrow.
“My door is open; it will stay open,” said Clinton on Thursday. “I am committed to working with them to get the job done.”
Dole disagreed, saying Clinton is playing presidential politics with the budget issue.
The targeted appropriations approach was taken to end the record three-week partial government shutdown (half of the 13 appropriations bills for fiscal 1996 have been passed and signed into law). The stop-gap funding measure keeping much of the government open today expires this Friday.
Now, GOP lawmakers are contemplating pursuing their fiscal objectives by passing short-term funding measures-one after the other-for the rest of the year.
Republicans have abandoned the tack of using government shutdowns to leverage Clinton into agreeing to a budget plan, and may scrap the idea of refusing to raise the $4.9 trillion debt limit (which it may have to do in two weeks to avoid defaulting on interest payment to bondholders.)
In addition, it appears doubtful the GOP can recruit enough of the 21 Blue Dog conservative Democrats to override another Clinton budget veto.
Democratic members of a moderate bipartisan group of 20 senators, called the Centrist Coalition, urged GOP and White House negotiators to continue working toward a compromise and blasted the prospect of GOP targeted funding for the rest of this year.
“I think that would be an admission we can’t the job done and may ultimately be the only thing we can do,” said Sen. John Breaux (D-La.).
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) called “this idea of targeted funding nonsense,” noting, “it will create the kind of continuing political gamesmanship and warfare that disgusts the public and turns them off from government generally.”
For the FCC and other federal agencies not in favor with GOP budget cutters, the consequences of targeting funding could be devastating. The FCC, under the current short-term spending bill, is being funded at $166 million, or nearly $20 million below last year’s budget. The agency requested $225 million for this year, and the House-Senate conference panel appropriated $175.7 million.
“The FCC is a victim of a budgetary drive-by shooting,” said FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.
If Republicans reduce government spending across the board for unfunded agencies to 75 percent of their fiscal 1995 levels, the FCC would operate at a $138 million level for the rest of this year.
“We’ve cut back to the bare bone at the moment,” said Maureen Peratino, an FCC spokeswoman. Moreover, further budget cuts could impair the commission’s ability to implement pending telecommunications reform legislation.
“If anyone expects us to competently administer the telecom bill we will disappoint you,” said Hundt. “Congress will be going from accident to blunder to calamity. It will cost tens of thousands of jobs if we can’t do the telecom bill.” Increased competition, the foundation of telecommunications reform, would suffer if the FCC lacks sufficient money to put new rules into place, he added.
Hundt noted the $25 million to $30 million needed to move FCC headquarters to The Portals next year is not available.
Because expanded spectrum auction authority is contained in the GOP seven-year budget plan vetoed by Clinton, the FCC’s ambitious plan to sell more kinds of wireless licenses is in jeopardy.
While the two government shutdowns have disrupted filing deadlines for wireless regulatory filings, the 900 MHz specialized mobile radio and C-block personal communications services auctions have continued uninterrupted, except for a brief intermission because of the snowstorm that blanketed the nation’s capital and much of the East earlier this month.
