Clinton pressures Congress on spending requests

June 6, 2000
Web posted at: 4:08 PM EDT (2008 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bill Clinton, in a White House speech delivered Tuesday afternoon, called on Congress to act on his request for emergency spending to fund everything from hurricane relief to drug interdiction.

President Bill Clinton

"Each and every one of these investments is urgently needed and the package as a whole enjoys strong bipartisan support," Clinton said Tuesday.

The president in February submitted the $5.5 billion request, which the House of Representatives passed after more than doubling it to $12 billion. Since then, the supplemental request has languished in the Senate.

The president said that aid for victims of Hurricane Floyd, including money for emergency fuel, has been affected by the delay, as has funding for U.S. troops in Kosovo.

"Many (hurricane victims) are still living in temporary shelters. These families will have to spend another winter there if they cannot rebuild their homes during this summer's construction season," the president said in an address from the Roosevelt Room.

The legislative delay also has stalled a $1.6 billion aid package for Colombia to help that country curtail its thriving drug trade, Clinton added.

The money would not only fund judicial reform and beef up Colombia's military hardware, but pay Colombian farmers to grow crops other than plants used to produce narcotics .

Also included in the president's supplemental spending request is funding intended to replenish the rapidly-declining fire fighting budget at the Department of the Interior. Without an injection of new funding, Clinton said the department will run out of funds to fight fires in the nation's forests by mid-June.

"This process in not the right thing to do when the needs of the country covered by the bills are so urgent," Clinton said. "The emergency spending bill should have been passed months ago. Let's do it now so that we can move on to other pressing business that we can and should pass this summer," he said.

The president also called on Congress to complete work on a "fiscally responsible" budget; bipartisan gun safety legislation; a strong, enforceable patients' bill of rights; a clean $1 per hour increase in the minimum wage over two years; and an affordable, voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit.

"The fact that this is an election year should not have an impact on that. If we just past the things that there's strong bipartisan majority support for, there we will be plenty of matters over which there are honest disagreements," Clinton said.

Tuesday, June 6, 2000

• Campaign finance furor sparked anew as panel releases Justice memos
  
• Gore announces child-care initiatives; Bush honors World War II veterans
  
• Democrats plan first wave of 'issue ads'
  
• Judge orders White House to produce e-mails
  
• Clinton pressures Congress on spending requests
  
• Political parties break soft money fund-raising records
  
• Republicans and Democrats share the Garden State's market for political intrigue
  
• Republicans offer compromises on patients' rights bill
  
• Vice President's wife appeals for votes, saying politics is 'personal'
  
• Bradley casts vote for Gore, promises to campaign for Democrats
  
• NRA's Baker sees year as pivotal for gun lobby
  
• latimes.com: Mountain states feel the neglect of presidential campaigns
  
• Gore, Mrs. Clinton raise $4 million at New York fund-raiser
  
• Secret money invading political system
  

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