YOUR KNIFE OR MINE?

By Karen Tumulty/Washington

It was all supposed to get the ax: Government aid to U.S. companies to build power plants overseas; $14 million to buy land for a U.S. Army museum near the Pentagon; millions more for Tennessee Valley Authority recreational facilities. When House Republicans passed their budget last month, they brashly proclaimed they would rip out wasteful programs, even whole departments, by the roots. There would be no mere trimming and rearranging as the Democrats had done in the past. But so far, it's not working out that way. The big problem: someone forgot to tell the Republicans who run the House Appropriations Committee.

The appropriators, who are charged with turning the budget's broad outline into detailed spending legislation, are rejecting their party's more revolutionary ideas for cutting the size of government-and, some dismayed Republicans say, jeopardizing the G.O.P.'s chances of actually achieving a balanced budget by 2002. The proposals being thrown out by the Appropriations Committee are relatively modest. But if lawmakers can't say no to little programs, it bodes ill for their ability later on to cut the bigger ones, like entitlements. No one is more worried by the direction in which things are headed than Budget Committee chairman John Kasich, who said that while the appropriators are meeting their spending targets for this year, their reluctance to uproot entire programs now will make it more difficult to reach the more ambitious goals that have been outlined for the later years of the seven-year drive to balance the budget. For his part, Appropriations Committee chairman Bob Livingston is plunging ahead with fierce independence, expressing little interest in Kasich's opinion. "He can run his business," Livingston said of the budget chief, "and I'll run mine."

Among many programs Kasich recommended killing was the Overseas Private Investment Corp., a $34 million-a-year agency venture that promotes exports to countries where U.S. businesses have been reluctant to operate. The Republican House formally endorsed its demise in foreign-aid legislation as well. How did the appropriators respond? By more than doubling opic's budget. The Budget Committee also recommended doing away with the Energy Department entirely. But if the energy subcommittee gets its way, the department will be cut by a mere 6% next year, or $940 million.

Critics say the appropriators may get their comeuppance on the House floor. Indeed, the committee got a taste of the battles to come last Friday, when the House killed the committee's funding for the Army museum -- a move that Livingston called "penny-wise and pound-foolish and meanspirited." This week G.O.P. freshmen will lead a fight to undo OPIC.

Livingston defends his committee's handiwork, insisting, "We are cutting, cutting, cutting." In many ways his job is far more difficult than writing the overall budget. The appropriators must do hand-to-hand combat with the special interests. "The Appropriations Committee is going to be the most difficult committee to be on in the Congress," Speaker Newt Gingrich said shortly before the Republicans took over. To run the committee, the Speaker selected Livingston over several more senior members who he feared had less of a bent for revolution. Nonetheless, those he passed over still hold positions of enormous power as subcommittee chairmen-a group referred to as the "College of Cardinals." Says a Republican aide: "The cardinals are the last bastion of the old order. They're accustomed to spending money, not cutting it."

--By Karen Tumulty/Washington