... ending an impasse that had deflected the Senate from its legislative business and clouded the debut of new Majority Leader Bill Frist.
Posted on 01/15/2003 6:26:41 PM PST by RCW2001
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, January 15, 2003; 9:16 PM
WASHINGTON –– Senate leaders reached agreement Wednesday on how the two parties will divide up committee funding, ending an impasse that had deflected the Senate from its legislative business and clouded the debut of new Majority Leader Bill Frist.
With the deal on committee organization, coming eight days after the 108th Congress opened, committee chairmanships will finally be turned over to the new Republican majority and 11 Senate freshmen will get their promised seats on the 20 Senate committees.
Frist, R-Tenn., said the deal was fair to both sides, and, with it done, the Senate can begin to "accomplish what we are all about, which is to proceed with the nation's business."
The completion of that normally routine housekeeping chore removes a distraction that had postponed hearings still nominally under Democratic chairmen and delayed action on a $385 billion catchall spending bill for the fiscal year starting last Oct. 1. The last Congress failed to act on the legislation to fund non-defense federal agencies.
The dispute made for a contentious start to the new session and its new leader, Frist, with Democrats claiming they were being treated unfairly and Republicans accusing Democrats of ignoring the results of last November's election that put the GOP back in the majority.
There was never a problem with numbers: In the last Congress, Democrats held a one-seat advantage on committees and in this session, Republicans will gain a one-seat edge.
But Democrats said that traditional committee funding ratios, where the minority got as little as one-third of the money going to each committee, was no longer relevant in light of the last Congress when the funds were divided nearly equally.
The 107th Congress began in a 50-50 tie, and the parties agreed to a formula of near parity in seats, funds and space. There were only minor changes in the funding ratio when Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., left the Republicans and shifted power to the Democrats.
Under the agreement outlined in a joint leadership letter, committee budgets will reflect the current ratio of the Senate, where Republicans have 51 seats and the Democrats, with Jeffords, have 49. An additional 10 percent will be given to the Republican chairman of each committee for administrative expenses.
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said the agreement was "the mirror image of the resolution we passed in the 107th Congress," when Democrats were up by 51-49. "We are very pleased with the outcome of the negotiations." Daschle said he hoped the precedent of committee structures being proportionate to Senate seats would continue in the future.
As in the past, individual committees will still be able to make adjustments in the formula.
In the end, the sides compromised on the division of committee funds, office space and committee assignments.
The deal gives the GOP a one-seat majority on all committees except the Intelligence and Ethics committees, which traditionally have an even number of members from both parties.
It also gives the majority a roughly 60-40 advantage when it comes to staff, money and space, more than the two-thirds to one-third ratio that Republicans had wanted but less than the 51-49 percent split reflecting the majority-minority ratio. Democrats had threatened to filibuster anything less than that.
This is like any other "budget crisis" that Congress plays out in public. In the end, the taxpayers end up paying out more hard-earned dollars than before.
This farce was intended to mask a 10% spending increase. Same old, same old.
Senate Reaches Deal on Organization
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats backed down from a standoff that had paralyzed the Senate Tuesday, agreeing to terms that will allow the Senate to operate with a new Republican majority.
In the end, the sides compromised on the division of committee funds, office space and committee assignments.
The deal gives the GOP a one-seat majority on all committees except the Intelligence and Ethics committees, which traditionally have an even number of members from both parties.
It also gives the majority a roughly 60-40 advantage when it comes to staff, money and space, more than the two-thirds to one-third ratio that Republicans had wanted but less than the 51-49 percent split reflecting the majority-minority ratio. Democrats had threatened to filibuster anything less than that.
For new Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the deal amounts to a small victory since Democrats insisted that they had set a precedent in the last Congress when they permitted a 51-49 percent split following independent Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords' defection from the GOP that gave the Democrats the majority.
It also allows the Senate to get down to the business of dealing with the president's agenda.
Both sides are preparing for battle over the president's $674 billion economic stimulus package and the 11 unfinished spending bills that should have been passed last year to fund the government this year.
Republicans want to wrap all 11 bills into one omnibus package worth $385 billion. But Democrats say that's not enough and have added calls for more spending to their attacks on the president's tax cuts.
"It's a tax cut of gargantuan proportion that has nothing to do with stimulus and everything to do with fiscal irresponsibility and recklessness," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who a good part of the day criticizing the Bush administration on a host of issues.
Daschle said the GOP is slashing the nation's spending priorities to pay for the president's tax relief package.
"These are cuts made by a Republican Congress to accommodate a Republican administration, which at the same time is advocating a huge bailout that we would call the Leave No Millionaires Behind Act," he said, playing on the name of the president's education bill passed last year.
Democrats plan amendments that add up to about $20 billion more than what Republicans want to spend.
Among the extra cash, $5 billion would go to homeland security, $8 billion would pay for education and $6 billion would be given for disaster relief and agricultural aid.
The nation's passenger rail Amtrak would get another $438 million to keep running. Democrats also want an additional $300 million to pay for home heating for low-income Americans.
Daschle said if the GOP attempts to block consideration of the Democrats' spending increases they may shut the Senate down again.
"We would even consider, I think, not providing our Republican friends with the opportunity to move forward on anything else until we have had the chance to offer an alternative," he said.
White House aides chalked up the Democrats' demand for more spending and fewer tax cuts to the start of what may be lengthy negotiations.
"The president's going to fight for the bill that he proposed. He understands that Congress, of course, has a role to play and is just beginning the process of playing that role, but let the process begin, and the president will fight for the bill he sent to the Congress," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, said that if Democrats had their way, it would definitely create a more egalitarian system.
"They might end up with what they consider fairness — everybody poverty stricken — and by definition of that fairness, but nobody would be better off," he said.
Fox News' Carl Cameron contributed to this report.
Have some of this.
But of course, only if it benefits the demonrat.......
Get 10 more republicans in 2004
It looks like Fox intended to swap "more than" and "less than" in this sentence. The way they wrote it makes no sense.
That was just his initial negotiating position.
When the Democrats use that kind of math to call a lower rate of government expansion a "budget cut," we call them spinning liars.
The Democrats were entitled to 33%. They asked for a 17% increase to 50%. The settled for a 7% increase to 40%.
They got more than they started with, we got less. They won, we lost.
If we had offered them 20% (instead of 33%), and they had settled for 25%, would we have lost?
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