Federal Workers Get Christmas Promise : Government: There won’t be any shutdown, Dole says. Agencies can’t spend money after Dec. 15 without a deadline extension or a budget deal.

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Federal employees should not worry about another government shutdown ruining their holidays, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said Saturday.

“It’s not going to happen,” Dole (R-Kan.) told reporters here before appearing in a Christmas parade. “If it does happen, I won’t want to come back [to Washington] right away.”

Federal agencies will lack authority to spend money unless President Clinton and Congress either get a budget deal by Dec. 15 or the two sides agree to extend that deadline.

Last month, the government shut down for four days as Clinton and the GOP-controlled Congress argued about balancing the federal budget and Medicare spending.

If no deal comes by Dec. 15, Dole said Congress and the President should agree to extend the deadline and keep the government running. “Around the holidays isn’t the time to be closing down the federal government,” he said.

Dole said he did not know whether Clinton and Congress could strike an overall deal by the deadline or be forced to agree on another temporary spending bill to keep the government operating.

Dole also said he believed public opinion would begin rallying behind American troops once the peacekeeping operation in Bosnia gets under way.

“The American people, particularly in the South and in South Carolina, are very patriotic and they have great respect for the military,” Dole said.

Dole stopped in Greenville for a few hours, riding as grand marshal in the parade along with his wife, Elizabeth Hanford Dole.

South Carolina’s March 2 Republican presidential primary is the first in the South. Much of the state’s GOP leadership has endorsed Dole, but rival Texas Sen. Phil Gramm is also well organized in the state.