Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - September 16, 2004
David Rogers, david.rogers@wsj.com
The action came as the Republican-controlled panel plunged into the year-end spending debate with a series of its own initiatives, on issues ranging from U.S. aid overseas to property rights at home.
The panel, clearly impatient with the pace of reconstruction work in Iraq, agreed for the first time to divert $150 million in unspent funds to address another pressing foreign crisis: the Sudan. After months of controversy surrounding financing for the Patent and Trademark Office, the panel reasserted itself by moving to raise patent and trademark application fees that will finance both a 26% budget increase for the agency and a beefed-up effort to combat the piracy of U.S. intellectual property abroad.
The labor, health, and education bill, covering three Cabinet departments, represents the heart of the domestic budget and promises more than $494.2 billion in new spending for the fiscal year beginning Oct 1. About two-thirds of these expenditures are driven by predetermined benefit programs for the poor, but the remainder is more genuinely discretionary, and moderate Republicans have chafed under the limits set by the president.
The White House last spring insisted on only a moderate $3 billion, or 2%, increase, but the Senate committee would effectively more than double this to $6.4 billion and spend more heavily on health and education programs. The National Institutes of Health is promised an estimated $28.9 billion, for example, a $1.1 billion increase and $373 million more than the president's request. Financial assistance for college students would rise to $14.86 billion, $850 million more than current funding and $161 million more than the president's request.
The president's own initiatives, including a $250 million community-college jobs-training proposal, fare much better than they have in the more conservative House. But the Senate spending levels rest on budgetary sleight-of-hand opposed by the White House. And by siding with labor in the overtime fight, the committee stepped into a fight that could jeopardize the whole package.
The business-backed wage rules went into effect Aug. 23, and the White House has warned that Mr. Bush will veto any measure that seeks to displace them. Nonetheless, labor unions have argued with some political success thus far that millions of white-collar workers stand to lose overtime pay under the new regime. Yesterday's 16-13 Senate committee vote mirrored a similar vote by the full House last week in which moderate Republicans broke ranks and opposed the president.
Although considerably smaller, two other committee bills, funding foreign aid and a host of regulatory agencies, as well as the Departments of Commerce, State and Justice, aren't without controversy.
The foreign-aid budget of more than $19.7 billion reflects deep cuts in some of the president's priorities, even as senators had to stretch to come up with funds for their own priorities, under the tight spending limits this year. For example, $150 million in off-budget emergency funding was added yesterday to address a shortfall in contributions to the Geneva-based Global Fund to fight AIDS and malaria overseas. It also was a significant step for Republicans to agree to take the $150 million from Iraq reconstruction funds as part of a larger Senate package to assist refugees in the Darfur section of the Sudan.
The $40.5 billion Commerce, State and Justice bill budgets $913 million for the Securities and Exchange Commission, continuing the steady increases of recent years. Fueled by an estimated $208 million increase in fee receipts, funding for the patent office will rise to $1.545 billion, and the bill's manager, Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), hopes to use $20 million to breathe new life into the so-called National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordinating Council. The council, including representatives from the State and Justice departments, patent office and the U.S. Trade Representative, has existed for years, but the level of funding far surpasses anything in the past. And $5 million would go to the trade representative to establish a position of chief negotiator for intellectual-property enforcement.
The committee's senators from rural states inserted a last-minute amendment upending a Federal Communications Commission review of whether federal subsidies should be used for more than one phone line to a home or small business.
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