FUDGING THE RULES AND
 BUSTING THE BUDGET
 SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS
 SERVICE

August 29
Section: Source: By LINDA SEEBACH

 Scripps Howard News Service

 Memo: For SUNDAY release

 Column
 ( Linda Seebach is an editorial writer for the Denver
 Rocky Mountain News.)

 Edition: 

 Unauthorized appropriations.

 Sounds as if it ought to be an oxymoron, but in fact it
 refers to a favorite spending game in Congress, played to
 the tune of nearly $101 billion in fiscal year 1999.

 Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who stopped by the
 Denver Rocky Mountain News recently, explained how it
 works. Every summer, before the fiscal year begins Oct.
 1, Congress must enact 13 appropriations bills that
 establish how much will be spent on the government's
 discretionary programs for the coming year.

 During the House debate on each bill, members can
 object if money is appropriated for programs whose
 authorization has expired, or for spending that never was
 authorized - called, naturally, unauthorized
 appropriations. It's a point of order, and automatic. But
 then the bill goes to conference committee with the
 Senate, and the House Rules Committee can waive the
 rule against unauthorized appropriations if they come out
 of conference committee.

 When the bill comes back to the House for a final vote,
 it's a straight up-or-down vote. The bills have to pass as
 Tancredo has observed; the Republicans are terrified that
 they'll be accused of "shutting down the government"
 again, so the game goes merrily on.

 Not that the Republicans invented it. For the 1999 list,
 Tancredo referred me to the Congressional Budget Office
 Web site, cbo.gov (search the site for "unauthorized").
 The CBO overview explains that its annual list of
 unauthorized appropriations is a requirement of the
 Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of
 1985.

 The CBO report actually understates how much
 congressional spending goes this route. It doesn't deal at
 all with mandatory programs whose original authorization
 law allows them to go straight to the budget every year
 without passing Congress. Such programs, which include
 the big entitlements, account for more than half of federal
 spending.

 The report doesn't include programs that never have
 been specifically authorized because they're considered
 an integral part of a Cabinet department's functions.
 Tancredo mentioned the Internal Revenue Service.

 Finally, the report lists, without dollar amounts, many
 programs that are "funded at an unidentified level in a
 large appropriation account."

 If the agency running the program can't tell the CBO how
 much is allocated to it, the CBO report lists the amount
 as "not available."

 For instance, "Omnibus Diplomatic Security and
 Antiterrorism Act of 1986," authorized for $14.7 million
 in 1987 and not since.

 What the report does list stills adds up to $101 billion.

 It's not that these are all unreasonable things for the
 government to be doing. "Some of these are things we
 like," Tancredo conceded.

 One of them is the National Aeronautics and Space
 Administration, last authorized in 1993 but still getting
 $13 billion a year. I like NASA.

 Legal Services Corporation? Last authorized 1979; $300
 million in 1999. The National Endowments for the Arts
 and Humanities? Last authorized 1993; $208.7 million in
 1999. Corporation for Public Broadcasting? Last
 authorized 1996; $340 million in 1999. International
 Narcotics Control Act? Last authorized 1994; $493.6
 million in 1999.

 They all have their defenders, and if they have a majority
 in Congress as well, good for them. But if the only way
 they can continue to get funding is to circumvent a vote
 in Congress, they shouldn't be funded.

 About 40 representatives who call themselves the
 Conservative Action Team (a counterweight to the
 Republican centrists who call themselves the Tuesday
 Lunch Bunch) have jointly signed a letter asking the
 Rules Committee to end its routine waivers.

 Also, there are two of this year's 13 appropriations
 remaining, and Tancredo said he and other CATs will
 move to strike unauthorized appropriations.

 "Next year," he promises, "every single time."

 The reauthorization process is the only time Congress
 really gets to debate the merits of a law, and it ought not
 to be able to postpone that debate indefinitely. Some
 laws, the CBO says, prohibit extending a program simply
 by giving it more money. That should be the standard.
 But until it is Congress should at least stop fudging the
 rules.