51.   The main sticking point was that conservative Republicans are insisting that any emergency spending measure include a provision intended to prevent government shutdowns during budget fights.

52.   The provision, which was also approved last week in the Senate version of the bill, is intended to prevent government shutdowns in budget fights.

53.   The public plainly eschews partisanship as the sort of device that infamously saw the government shut down in a budget fight.

54.   There are no big budget fights in Albany over housing the retarded, and New York has built twice as much housing for them as for the mentally ill.

55.   Then they sent the Legislature home for the holiday weekend, virtually ensuring that the longest budget fight in state history will drag well into next week.

56.   They had been taking a shellacking on the budget fight with President Clinton.

57.   They say that he does not have a large savings account that could carry him through a protracted budget fight and has several major bills nearly due.

58.   This is likely to be a long drawn out budget fight, and its political consequences could surprise everybody.

59.   We were able to get that done in the budget fights because the Democrats hung in there with me.

60.   What the president seized from the balanced budget fight was a favorite Democratic role -- as defenders of Social Security.