Gore says GOP budget plan puts Social Security on back burner

By Alan Fram, Associated Press, March 19, 1999

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Al Gore accused Republicans yesterday of writing a budget putting "risky tax schemes first and Social Security last" as a Senate committee approved a $1.74 trillion spending plan for fiscal 2000.

A day after the GOP-led House Budget Committee passed a similar measure, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, drove his own package through his panel by a party-line 11-9 vote.

Both chambers' plans promise to cut taxes by $778 billion over 10 years and provide more money for schools and defense while heeding spending limits and using Social Security surpluses to trim the national debt.

Six weeks after President Clinton proposed his 2000 budget, the House and Senate plans were the GOP's first chance to display its fiscal priorities in writing. Democrats said Republicans would do nothing to reinforce Social Security and Medicare for the baby boomers' retirements, bestow overly large tax cuts, and force deep spending cuts -- all the while imperiling the economy.

"The Republican plan puts risky tax schemes first and Social Security last," Gore told a group of newspaper publishers visiting the White House. He added, "I appeal to the Republican leadership to abandon this nostalgia for the recession of the past, and this nostalgia for risky tax schemes and roulette-style economics."

Gore referred to the GOP plan as "Republican retronomics."

Republicans countered that it was Clinton -- who would give Treasury bonds to the Social Security trust funds -- who was not helping that program or Medicare. By proposing to reserve 77 percent of surpluses during the next 15 years for those two programs, the president was trying to prevent Republicans from cutting taxes, they said.

"They claim that's a reason to not give the American people tax cuts because they're saving Medicare, when it just doesn't do anything" to save Medicare, Domenici said.

He later said of the White House, "Instead of trying to get things done, they're trying to electioneer for Vice President Gore already."

Congress's budget provides lawmakers with overall tax and spending limits for fiscal 2000, which begins Oct. 1, but leaves decisions on specifics for future bills. It does not require the president's signature.

Before approving Domenici's budget, the panel voted 21-0 to reject Clinton's spending plan.

Democrats said they support the main principles of the president's budget -- reserving most of the surplus for Social Security and Medicare. But many of them feared Republican attacks if they supported the Clinton plan, which would allow some Social Security funds to be spent for domestic programs in the next few years.

The full House and Senate are expected to approve both budgets next week and pass a compromise plan next month.