Sciences Fare Better Than Expected in 1997 Budget as Congress Rushes for the Door and the Election

摘要

With less than six hours before the start of fiscal 1997, on 1 October the Senate cleared legislation for nine Cabinet departments and dozens of agencies, avoiding a partial government shutdown. Just after 10 pm the same night, President Clinton signed the omnibus appropriations bill, which bundled six separate spending measures into more than 2000 pages, and thereby enacted the last of the 13 appropriations statutes for the fiscal year. So ended the fractious 104th Congress, best remembered for its fiscal battles with the White House and their shutdown of the Federal government for 21 days last winter. In its rush to the doors of the Capitol building, the Republican members, who two years earlier had taken control of the House for the first time in 40 years, breathing fire and brimstone and threatening to pull out by their roots the Departments of Commerce, Education and Energy, left grudgingly but quietly to run for reelection.