GET SERIOUS WITH D.C.'S BUDGET

HOUSE REPUBLICANS let it be known that they aren't the least bit interested
in sitting down with the White House and Democratic lawmakers to work out a
sensible compromise on the District's $4.7 billion budget.

Rather than meeting to resolve the impasse over the city's spending plan,
the House GOP, on a mostly party line vote, rammed through for the third
time a bill that is unacceptable to the Clinton administration and city
leaders. Fortunately for the city, the Senate took a major step toward
saving the day by passing a better budget bill yesterday.

The House action on Thursday was driven by a partisan desire to make
political hay at President Clinton's expense.

Last month, in a stout defense of D.C. home rule, the president objected to
the attachment of several social riders on the D.C. budget -- including a
ban on the use of medical marijuana and drug needle exchanges -- because
they interfere in local decision-making. Instead of accepting the
presidential veto for what it was, House Republicans have been using that
decision to smear Mr. Clinton as soft on drugs.

In order to further embarrass the president, House Republicans passed a
virtually unchanged bill, sending it to the Senate, where they hoped allies
in the upper chamber would keep the game going. To its credit, the Senate
refused to go along.

Unlike the House's, the Senate's bill allows the city to review and comment
on the voting rights case now being privately litigated in the District's
behalf. The Senate also permits the Whitman Walker Clinic to accept private
funds for the important needle exchange program.

Again, the House bill would not. And key funds added earlier for college
tuition assistance and crime-fighting programs are still intact.

The ban on the poorly worded medical marijuana initiative still stands, however.

Likewise, a provision allowing the construction of cellular telephone
antenna towers in Rock Creek Park remains alive.

The Senate bill is far from perfect.

But it is better than the House's and a good start toward producing an
acceptable final product.

Above all, the city needs a permanent budget, not the temporary spending
resolution under which it has been operating.

District leaders have done their part by passing a balanced budget with a
surplus and tax cuts. The Senate has stepped forward and provided leadership
sadly lacking in the House. Now it's time for Senate-House conferees, Del.
Norton and administration officials to negotiate a D.C. budget bill that is
worthy of the president's signature.