ASHINGTON - The national confusion over who will be the next president may not have stopped the work of government, but it does seem to be slowing it down.
Congress is to return Monday for a rare lame-duck session to finish work on the government's budget for fiscal 2001, which started Oct. 1. But without knowing who will occupy the White House next year, lawmakers are uncertain about what sort of budget they ought to be writing.
''When you're negotiating next year's budget, you want to know who next year's president is going to be,'' said John Feehery, spokesman for J. Dennis Hastert, who is an Illinois Republican and speaker of the House of Representatives.
Congressional leaders are considering returning to work next week just long enough to pass another in a continuing series of temporary funding measures to keep government offices working until after Thanksgiving. That presumably would be enough time to resolve questions about the disputed balloting in Florida.
If Republican nominee George W. Bush prevails in Florida, its 25 electoral votes would win him the keys to the White House. But Democratic nominee Al Gore's team is weighing legal challenges that threaten to leave the election's outcome in doubt for weeks.
For lawmakers of both parties, the muddled outcome makes it nearly impossible to determine what their bargaining positions should be going into final budget talks with President Clinton.
''I'm not sure who has any motivation to compromise and reach a deal,'' said Burdett Loomis, a Brookings Institution political scholar who is writing a book on Tuesday's congressional elections.
A prime example of the murky political situation is a pending tax bill backed by Republicans. It contains tax breaks for small businesses and 401(k)s. The $240 billion, 10-year bill includes goodies favored by Democrats, such as a $1 increase in the current $5.15 hourly minimum wage, which organized labor favors, and $25 billion in tax breaks for economically depressed neighborhoods. The bill also contains about $30 billion to restore Medicare subsidies to hospitals and other health-care providers.
If Bush is the next president, Republicans may be inclined to shelve the bill under the assumption that they will be able to pass one with much more generous tax breaks next year. If Gore is the next chief executive, GOP lawmakers may prefer to compromise with Clinton.
''If Bush is president, we know we're going to get a much better tax bill next year,'' Feehery said.
Complicating matters further, Clinton is expected to begin a trip to Vietnam next week, becoming unavailable for budget negotiations until just before Thanksgiving.
''It takes two sides to wrap up a budget agreement, and we don't know that Clinton will have any idea what he wants out of this until he knows who his successor is,'' said Michele Davis, chief spokeswoman for House majority leader Richard K. Armey, a Texas Republican.
She said lawmakers will return to work Monday, but may stay long enough just to pass the stopgap funding bill Tuesday. The 106th Congress would have to return after Thanksgiving to finish its work, hopefully before Christmas and certainly before January, when the 107th Congress is scheduled to be seated, she said.
Even once the identity of the new president is known, the new Congress could be more closely divided than it has been in more than 40 years, worsening the partisanship that has stymied work on major legislation since 1997.
Tuesday's election narrowed the Republicans' majority in the House to 221-212 from 223-210. Their tenuous hold could become even weaker, depending on possible recounts being discussed in four congressional districts.
A recount seemed likely in New Jersey's 12th District, where Democratic Representative Rush Holt was defeated by Republican Dick Zimmer, a former House member, by only 56 votes, according to an Associated Press tally.
Other potential recounts were in Florida's 22d District, where GOP Representative Clay Shaw beat state Representative Elaine Bloom, a Democrat, by 637 votes; in Michigan's 8th District, where Republican state Senator Mike Rogers beat Democratic state Senator Dianne Byrum by 152 votes for an open seat; and in Minnesota's 2d District, where Democratic Representative David Minge lost his seat by 495 votes to GOP challenger Mark Kennedy. All numbers are from the AP's count of final results.
So far, the Senate is divided 50-49 in favor of Republicans with the results of one race in Washington state still out. A tally of absentee ballots over the next few days will determine whether Republican incumbent Slade Gorton keeps his seat. That would increase his party's total to 51. If Democratic challenger Maria Cantwell wins, the Senate would be split 50-50.
If Gore becomes president, the Senate equation changes. His running mate, Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, would give up his Senate seat, which he ran for and won. The Republican governor of Connecticut would be sure to pick a GOP replacement. The split then would be 51-49 if Cantwell wins in Washington state, 52-48 if Gorton wins.
