Overtime Pay Dispute Stalls Spending Bill

[Socialist Christian]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=2&u=/ap/20031121/ap_on_go_co/overtime_dispute

WASHINGTON - Pressure built on lawmakers Friday to abandon their effort to prevent the Bush administration from implementing new overtime rules that opponents say would cost millions of workers the extra pay.



Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, one of the foremost Republican proponents of blocking the regulations, said congressional leaders have threatened to remove language killing the new rules from a huge end-of-session spending bill.


If they did that, a vote by Specter and his allies against such a bill would be in effect a vote to shut down the government over the issue. Specter acknowledged that such an alternative would be unrealistic.


"Does anybody have any choice. If you don't have" the year-end spending bill, "you don't have any money," and federal agencies would have to close, said Specter, who faces a tough re-election fight next year in a state where organized labor is strong.