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Congress Faces
Tough Agenda
from USA Today and
Gannett News Service, January 4, 2003
For more articles visit
www.bridges4kids.org.
What
Congress does when it returns Tuesday will affect Americans'
health and wealth, the roads and highways they drive and the
education of their children.
Things will
be a little different in Washington this year. Republicans now
control the House and the Senate, as well as the White House.
And they've got a new face to lead them in the Senate: Bill
Frist of Tennessee, a heart surgeon who has promised healing and
bipartisanship. But the GOP margins are still quite slim: They
control 51 of the 100 Senate seats, and 52.6% of the House's 435
seats.
Congressional sessions last two years, but little tends to get
done in a presidential election year as both parties posture for
voters. So this 2003 session will be the one that matters — for
the president, the parties and ordinary citizens.
Here's a
look at key issues facing lawmakers, and what they are likely to
do about them:
BUDGET
President
Bush signed legislation Nov. 25 creating a new Department of
Homeland Security, but much of the agency's $40 billion budget
hasn't been allocated by Congress. As a result, the 22 agencies
and 170,000 workers that will be folded into the new department
don't have money to begin the consolidation.
Since the
Oct. 1 start of the 2003 fiscal year, only the Defense
Department and the military construction budget have been given
extra money. All other agencies are operating at 2002 funding
levels and they don't have the legal authority to shift money
into new programs. A stopgap spending bill that funds these
government agencies expires on Jan. 11.
Most of the
unfinished work needs to be done in the Senate, which wants to
spend more than the House. Until the Senate trims its spending
plan or the House agrees to spend more, the two sides won't be
able to negotiate an omnibus spending plan for the remainder of
the 2003 fiscal year. Congressional Republicans hope to have an
omnibus budget plan ready for a vote before the end of January.
EDUCATION
Congress missed
its deadline in 2002 to rewrite the 27-year-old law that governs
the education of disabled children — largely because lawmakers
avoid tackling controversial legislation in an election year.
But Republicans say the special education law will be a priority
next year. Lawmakers will insist that schools emphasize academic
gains for handicapped students, said David Schnittger, a
spokesman for GOP members of the House Education and the
Workforce Committee.
Democrats are
expected to insist that Washington pay a bigger share of the
cost of schooling disabled children. States are pressing the
federal government to live up to its promise to pay 40% of
special education costs. The federal government now pays about
17%.
Another big
fight is expected over the use of taxpayer-funded vouchers for
private schools. Some Republicans want to give vouchers to
handicapped children. Democrats pledged to fight the plan.
Congress also
must reauthorize the Higher Education Act, which deals with $60
billion worth of federal grant and loan programs, including the
Pell grant for low-income college students. Hot issues will
include rising college costs and low graduation rates. One
proposal calls for cutting off federal aid for a college if its
graduation rate falls too low.
In the Senate,
Judd Gregg, R-N.H., will chair the Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions Committee. In the House, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio,
heads the Education and the Workforce Committee.
ELDERLY
ISSUES
Medicare
provides broad health insurance coverage for nearly 40 million
older and disabled Americans. But the federal program doesn't
pay for outpatient prescription drugs.
Lawmakers
promised to help seniors with drug costs, but couldn't reach a
consensus. The same disagreements are lingering as Congress
prepares to take up the issue again early in 2003.
In general,
Democrats favor spending more for a broad prescription-drug
benefit package that would reach the largest number of seniors.
It would be administered through a government agency.
Most
Republicans prefer spending less, targeting the benefit to those
who need it most and having it managed largely by private-sector
administrators.
The trust
funds that fuel Social Security, the federal pension program for
the elderly, survivors and disabled, will be exhausted in 2043.
Reforms — primarily tax increases, benefit cuts or both — become
harder and costlier the longer Congress waits. But reform is not
likely to get serious attention in 2003.
Reforming
Social Security by allowing younger workers to divert a portion
of the withholding tax to privately owned savings accounts was a
centerpiece of President Bush's 2000 campaign. But White House
Chief of Staff Andrew Card said Social Security reform
legislation would probably have to wait until 2004 or later.
Key
committee chairmen include Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who
oversees the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif.,
head of the House Ways and Means Committee.
ENVIRONMENT
With
Republicans in charge, business leaders are hopeful that energy
legislation derailed by Senate Democrats can be revived and
clean air regulations eased.
There may be
a replay of the divisive debate over whether to open the 1.5
million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil
and gas drilling.
President
Bush has touted Arctic drilling as a cornerstone of his energy
plan, arguing that it will decrease America's dangerous
dependence on foreign oil. But environmentalists and their
Democratic allies in the Senate said the Arctic oil would last
only about six months and would destroy the habitat of polar
bears, caribou and wolves.
Although
Senate GOP leaders support drilling, it's not clear whether they
will be able to defeat an expected filibuster by Democrats and
moderate Republicans. Instead of pushing Arctic drilling, Bush
and his congressional allies may press for drilling in the Rocky
Mountains and other environmentally sensitive western lands.
With the GOP
in charge, Senate Democrats no longer will be able to block the
president's Clear Skies Initiative, which Bush says will provide
incentives to businesses to reduce air pollution.
Environmentalists say the plan would weaken existing protections
in the Clean Air Act.
MONEY
ISSUES
Congress is
expected to act quickly to keep unemployment checks going to
hundreds of thousands of people who haven't been able to find
work. Extended benefits, which average $250 per week, stopped
Dec. 28 for an estimated 780,000 jobless workers across the
nation. The House and Senate couldn't reach a compromise on
extending the aid before adjourning.
President
Bush is expected to have an easier time getting the
GOP-controlled Congress to make permanent the 10-year, $1.35
trillion tax cut that expires in 2011. Efforts also will be made
to accelerate some of the provisions that don't take effect
until 2004 or later.
Any tax cut
package will likely include provisions to encourage savings for
retirement, such as increasing the tax-deferred contributions
made to retirement accounts such as IRAs and 401(k)s.
House
Republicans have the votes to pass most tax cuts, but the GOP's
slim majority in the Senate will make things more difficult
there.
The White
House also is working on a $300 billion economic stimulus
package that may include a three-year reduction in capital gains
taxes for new investments.
Incoming
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has
said his early priorities will be bills to rein in corporate tax
shelters, protect workers' pensions in the face of corporate
wrongdoing and offer tax incentives for alternative energy.
SOCIAL
POLICY
Emboldened
by GOP gains in the Senate and President Bush's popularity,
conservatives hope to pass an array of social policy legislation
in the new Congress. Conservatives are backing legislation to
restrict abortions, increase funding for abstinence programs and
marriage promotion, and expand the federal government's ties to
religious groups that provide services to the needy by giving
them greater access to federal contracts.
Abortion
opponents are pushing legislation that would define a fetus as a
human being and also want to ban what critics call
"partial-birth" abortions. The GOP-led Congress also is more
likely to confirm judges who oppose abortion.
Congress
also is expected to approve a short-term extension of the
welfare law, which expires Jan. 11, before it approves a more
substantive bill likely to include increased work requirements
for recipients.
The House
passed a five-year welfare extension in May that mirrored
President Bush's plan and boosted work requirements from 30 to
40 hours. But the bill stalled in the Senate because Democrats
wanted to keep work requirements at current levels and increase
funding for child care.
TERRORISM
AND NATIONAL SECURITY
The war on
terror, friction with Iraq and protecting Americans from
terrorist attacks were major issues for the last Congress and
they will remain at the forefront in the next session.
Lawmakers
did a good deal of heavy legislative lifting in 2002 by passing
bills to establish the massive new Cabinet Department of
Homeland Security, tighten security at America's ports and give
President Bush authority to use force against Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein if he refuses to disarm.
Still, the
task ahead is formidable.
Intelligence
now indicates Osama bin Laden may still be alive and
orchestrating terror worldwide with his top lieutenants.
Tensions with Iraq grow almost daily as U.N. inspectors scour
the country for weapons of mass destruction. And even though
Congress has approved the new Department of Homeland Security,
it has yet to allocate the funds to operate it.
Congress
must also play a lead role in reforming the nation's
intelligence agencies — chiefly the CIA, FBI and the National
Security Agency — which came under heavy fire for missing vital
clues leading up to the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Congress will also have to reorganize itself to provide
oversight to the new Department of Homeland Security, which
encompasses 22 different agencies.
Meanwhile, a
growing chorus of Americans is voicing concern that government
is using the threat of terrorism to restrict individual rights
and privacy.
TRANSPORTATION
When
Congress returns next year, lawmakers will be confronted with a
busload of transportation issues: how to reduce airline
congestion as part of the reauthorization of the Federal
Aviation Administration, what to do about money-losing Amtrak,
and how to allocate billions for highway and public transit
projects nationwide through the end of the decade.
The fight
over highway dollars will be a high-stakes battle pitting
environmentalists who want more money spent on mass transit,
bicycle paths and other uses against road builders, truckers and
rural interests who want to increase interstate capacity. In the
middle are state transportation agencies that want maximum
flexibility.
The GOP
takeover in the Senate won't have much of an effect on aviation
and highway funding, programs driven largely by regional
debates. But GOP control will matter when it comes to Amtrak,
long a symbol of government waste and inefficiency in the eyes
of many conservatives.
Amtrak,
which required $1 billion in federal aid to stay afloat last
year, is up for reauthorization. The company has asked Congress
and the Bush administration to make a decision on the future of
passenger rail but the answer might not be easy to reach given
the attachment some powerful lawmakers have to the money-losing
lines that serve their constituents.
Contributing: Fredreka
Schouten, Larry Wheeler, Erin Kelly, Jon Frandsen, Brian Tumulty,
Pamela Brogan, Ledyard King, John Yaukey, Carl Weiser and
Katherine Hutt Scott, Gannett News Service
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