"WE'VE MADE OUR POINT"

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole has split with House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a bloc of other House Republicans, who refuse to end the government shutdown even temporarily without major budget concessions from the White House. Tuesday afternoon, the Senate unanimously passed a Dole-backed bill to send furloughed federal employees back to work with pay. "I think we've made our point," said Dole. "Some of these good people who work for the government live paycheck to paycheck. There aren't too many wealthy people working for the government." But House Republicans are holding fast to their demand of a budget agreement that achieves balance by 2002 before ending the 18-day federal shutdown. Still, congressional correspondent Karen Tumulty says Dole's statement portends no dramatic schism in the GOP. Not yet, anyway. "Dole has favored this approach all along. The real divisions could come when the final budget package is presented and legislators see how the major disagreements have been dealt with." When? "It's impossible to say," Tumulty says. "But typically, progress in these kinds of negotiations isn't incremental. The breakthrough, when it happens, will likely be a major one, and then everything else will come together at dizzying speed."