Politics

GOP Pledges To Mind The Store

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 18, 1999 / 4:29 PM EST / CBS

Republicans lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill this week vowing to focus on taxes, Social Security, education and other issues important to voters.

The GOP has been damaged by Democratic charges that the party is obsessed with the removal of President Clinton and has become a prisoner of the extreme right wing.

Many committees in the GOP-controlled Congress are planning a full slate of hearings this week. The party is also revving up its public relations machine to make sure that the voters know that GOP lawmakers are hard at work.

"I am committed to moving forward with the people's business," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., as he announced his schedule for 11 hearings on taxes, Social Security and other topics.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is also getting off to an early start with hearings on spending bills for 2000. Republican delays in the last Congress gave President Clinton the opportunity to outmaneuver the GOP in bargaining over last fall's $520 billion spending bill. Many GOP conservatives were angry about the additional spending in the legislation approved by Congress.

GOP lawmakers are already displaying a taste for legislative combat over high-profile issues.

GOP senators plan to reintroduce a bill to give patients of HMOs more rights, such as the setting up of external review boards to handle complaints.

Recalling how Democrats killed a similar Republican measure last year, Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla., pointedly said, "It is our hope that the Democrats will join us in a bipartisan effort."

Minutes later, Democratic leaders retorted with a news conference of their own, and, like last year, accused Republicans of producing a bill that doesn't go far enough.

"I can absolutely guarantee we'll have an opportunity to protect all people involved in HMOs, not just the small fraction the Republican bill provides," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.