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House Republicans are proposing almost $18 billion more in mandatory spending cuts than President Bush requested, while making additional allowances for military costs in Iraq and Afghanistan and accommodating much of Bush's tax cuts, as well as a fix for the alternative minimum tax he did not include in his budget.

The House Budget Committee began work Wednesday on its $2.57 trillion fiscal 2006 budget resolution, and planned to work late into the evening to deal with close to 30 Democratic amendments.

House Republicans are likely to bring the budget blueprint, which proposes a 2.1 percent increase in discretionary spending to $843 billion, to the floor next Wednesday.

Senate Budget Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., planned to unveil his version on Wednesday.

All told, the proposals from House Budget Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, assume a projected fiscal 2005 deficit of $394 billion would decline to $376 billion next year and $229 billion in fiscal 2009 -- meeting Bush's goal of halving the deficit within five years. Nussle said the budget would hit that target because of its focus on mandatory spending, which is 55 percent of the total budget and growing each year.

"This budget chooses, as tough as it may be, to begin dealing with this problem now," he said.

The budget resolution would require House committees to come up with $68.6 billion in mandatory savings proposals over the next five years, including $7.8 billion in fiscal 2006. That is almost $18 billion more than the $51 billion proposed by the White House as scored by the Congressional Budget Office. The House tax cut target is $106 billion, enough to extend most of Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and provide a temporary patch to keep more taxpayers from falling under the alternative minimum tax. Of that total, $45 billion would be protected under reconciliation instructions, with the House Ways and Means Committee given a June 24 deadline.

The House budget allows for $81 billion in fiscal 2005 supplemental spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the Bush budget does, but also for $50 billion in fiscal 2006. It contains no language on Social Security overhaul proposals.

"The budget put forth by House Republicans shares all the flaws of the president's budget," said House Budget ranking member John Spratt, D-S.C.

The mandatory cuts would fall most heavily on programs within the purview of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which is being asked to come up with $21.4 billion in savings.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, with a $20 billion target, is expected to focus on Medicaid and extending broadcast spectrum auction authority, among other measures.

The House Ways and Means Committee has an $18.7 billion savings goal. Programs under the purview of the Agriculture Committee would get a slight reprieve from the Bush budget, with a total of $5.3 billion in required savings, down from about $7.5 billion. House Republicans are expected to target non-farm programs such as food stamps.

The budget sets a Sept. 16 deadline for producing the savings, which would then be packaged together as a "reconciliation" bill that would be protected from filibusters in the Senate. The Senate budget resolution will allow for $70 billion in protected tax cuts and about $40 billion in mandatory savings, although unlike the House it is expected to assume revenues from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

COMMENTS

• The problem is that the pols just can't seem to get it through their collective heads that it IS their money as taxpayers. If they treated it that way, they would balance the income to the outgo very quickly. If you are responsible at home, you don't get the option to keep on spending more than you make - bankruptcy does happen. Oh, never mind. I used that "responsible" word. And that doesn't describe the majority of pols which explains the problem, doesn't it? It's our fault, though. A few elections ago there was a large "Throw the bums out!" campaign, but the election results showed that the majority in this nation only wanted OTHERS to throw their bums out of office, they wanted to keep their own pork-slinging bums. But don't worry, we can alway increase the tax on the rich to make up for it. Robert Heinlein had a quote in one of his books - Democracy is wonderful until "...the masses find out they can vote themselves cakes and circuses..." and make someone else pay for them. Skeptical Posted March 11, 2005 8:09 AM
• I agree that Congress has to cut spending somewhere and that they've picked the most viable, logical choices - welfare programs. If we as taxpayers want to continue supporting social services, then we're going to have to pay more in taxes. In the mean time, the cuts are going to force these programs' managers to reduce benefits and more strictly police alleged abuses within their programs. It's the same problem Mississippi's Medicare program is facing...and they're running out of funding at the end of this month! According to local news, they've overpaid hospitals several milliion dollars over the past 3 years due to computer errors. Stephanie Smith Posted March 10, 2005 10:15 AM