Budget deal remains elusive as election approaches

WASHINGTON - Congress' final budget battle with President Clinton was to resume with a rare Sunday session, and Republicans vowed to stay until Election Day, if necessary, rather than accede to the president's spending demands.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., directed all blame for the impasse at the White House. "What Clinton wants is for us to cave to what his demands are," Lott said on ABC's "This Week." "We're prepared to find fair, common ground, but we're not going to just give him the things he's demanding."

Nine days remain until the election, and Lott said Congress will stay in session that long, "if that's what it takes."

Clinton also called on lawmakers to put aside partisan demands.

"I am not trying to provoke a confrontation here," Clinton said Saturday. "They'll get some of what they want; we'll get some of what we want." If they reach an agreement yesterday, he said, they could wrap up on today and head home to campaign.

Only seven of the 13 annual spending bills have been signed into law, almost a month into the new fiscal year and just nine days before the election. Possible vetoes hang over at least two others, and the two sides are still far apart on a huge $350 billion bill to fund labor, education and health programs.

Also drawing a veto threat is a 10-year, $240 billion tax relief package that contains a $1 boost in the minimum wage. Clinton says the measure is unacceptable because he says too much of a $30 billion giveback to Medicare providers goes to health management organizations.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota also accused Republicans of bowing to special interest groups in blocking Clinton's demands for tax breaks for school construction.

"The bill that's currently before us gives three times as much in tax breaks to the executives getting business lunches as it does providing for school construction," Daschle said on "Fox News Sunday."