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Politics : PRESIDENT JOHN FORBES KERRY -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chas. who wrote (198)	3/5/2004 9:50:23 AM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 1017

Posted 3/5/2004 6:59 AM GOP braces to fight off tries at rewriting $2.36T budget WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans pushing a $2.36 trillion budget for 2005 braced for an election-year test of whether lawmakers want to pare spending and huge deficits more sharply than President Bush has proposed. The Senate Budget Committee used a party-line 12-10 vote Thursday to approve the measure after fending off a slew of Democratic efforts to trim its proposed tax cuts and add extra funds for deficit reduction, veterans and health programs. The plan claims to halve record budget shortfalls in three years while boosting defense by less than Bush wants and culling savings from many domestic programs. Democrats plan similar amendments when the Senate considers the package next week, hoping to draw support from GOP moderates in the narrowly divided chamber. They also want to call voters' attention to what they say are unacceptably high shortfalls, a five-year budget that they say masks worsening deficits later, and underfinanced priorities like education. "Hiding your debt, not facing up to your obligations and waiting for the roof to cave in," the budget panel's top Democrat, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, told Republicans. The committee's chairman, Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., said the Senate will probably add back the $7 billion his budget would cut from Bush's $421 billion defense proposal. Other increases for domestic spending are also possible, he said. "It won't be easy," he said after Thursday's meeting. "We'll be debating spending, and it looks like we'll spend a lot of time debating Medicare," which is becoming a popular campaign-year target for critics of the overhaul enacted last year. Another hurdle could come from Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the budget panel's former chairman and a longtime deficit hawk. He is considering an amendment requiring Congress to pay for future tax cuts, or force supporters to garner 60 votes in the Senate, a margin that can be tough to attain. House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, also is encountering problems a week before his panel debates a similar plan. Pro-defense House Republicans are threatening to vote "no" because it would slice Bush's military proposal by $2 billion. But GOP moderates want savings from the entire budget, including the Pentagon. Congress' budget, which does not need the president's signature, sets overall tax and spending ceilings for the year. Its detailed proposals are not binding and actual changes in revenues and expenditures are made later. At the Senate Budget Committee meeting, the panel's solidly conservative Republicans swatted down a parade of Democratic amendments on party-line votes. One amendment would have made it harder to cut taxes or raise spending without paying for it with other budget savings. Another would have added $20 billion to the $30 billion already in the budget for U.S. operations in Iraq next year, paid for by reducing future tax cuts. Others would have forced the GOP to pay for the $144 billion in tax cuts over five years the budget would permit, and added money for veterans health care, port security and education. In a symbolic victory for Democrats, the panel by 14-8 approved a nonbinding amendment by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., backing the importation of prescription drugs. Supporters say the idea, opposed by the pharmaceutical industry, would save consumers money, but the administration says it is concerned the drugs could be unsafe. Much of the Senate budget's deficit reduction comes from assumed economic growth, which generates extra federal revenue. It proposes modest savings from Medicaid and the earned income tax credit for the working poor, and would hold most other domestic programs — except automatically paid benefits like Medicare — to about what they received for this year. The Senate plan claims to cut this year's projected $477 billion deficit — a record in dollar terms — to $338 billion next year. The red ink would fall to $224 billion by 2007, a halving of the shortfalls that Bush proposes taking five years to achieve. The figures are a bit higher if the Iraq money is included. By 2009, the end of the budget's projections, deficits would still be $202 billion. Shortfalls are expected to worsen afterward as the baby boom generation starts retiring. Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. usatoday.com