Thousands of jobs at stake in defense authorization bill

WASHINGTON -- Buried in the avalanche of last-minute business occupying Congress before it adjourns for the year lies the fate of thousands of defense jobs.

The Defense Authorization Bill was approved by the Senate Thursday and now needs only the signature of President Clinton to trigger a host of changes in the Pentagon budget.

Some would be welcome in the military, including a bonus to keep Air Force pilots in the service longer, and a slightly higher pay raise than the 2.3 percent for all personnel already guaranteed. But mixed in with those items is a mandate to cut headquarter and management personnel by 25 percent over five years, and to remove between 10,000 and 25,000 jobs from acquisition departments throughout the military. Some, like Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, preempted potential cuts when it announced two weeks ago that it was eliminating 500 jobs from the headquarters offices at Air Force Materiel Command. That three-year reduction is not part of the cuts envisioned in this defense bill, and a spokesman for the Materiel Command office said they weren't going to speculate on what might come out of Congress. But some think the cuts could be used to save Wright-Pat, one of the military's largest air bases, from some of the impact the new law could have. "I think they're working hard to be ahead of the curve on some of this stuff," said U.S. Rep. David L. Hobson, R-Ohio, whose district includes Wright-Pat. "One of the problems we face in all this is that we're redefining what the military looks like in the future. And nobody knows exactly what that's going to be." But the question now is, will Clinton sign it? He doesn't like a key provision in the bill that would prevent him from honoring a campaign promise to privatize military depots in Texas and California. And technically speaking, he doesn't have to sign it. The Pentagon's 1998 budget was signed, sealed and delivered when the defense appropriations bill was finished earlier this year. If this budget authorization bill goes unsigned, the dollars spent on defense won't change much for next year. Authorization bills typically pass in conjunction with, or ahead of, appropriations legislation and deal more with budget policy than accounting numbers. This authorization bill fell behind the appropriations process because of fighting in the Senate over the depots in Texas and California. The compromise on that issue garnered enormous support in both the House and Senate, but with Congress trying to finish today, there isn't time to override a veto if Clinton decides to use his pen. But these are the cat-and-mouse days at the end of the session. Just after the Senate approved the bill on a 90-10 vote Thursday, the White House moved away from its earlier threats of a veto and shifted to the "undecided" position. Clinton could sign the bill in exchange for congressional support for other things.

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