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House and Senate conferees on the fiscal 2005 Defense appropriations conference report are planning to attach a provision designating an overall fiscal 2005 discretionary spending target of $821.9 billion for the Senate, putting an end to the budget stalemate that has persisted for months.

The House adopted that spending target when it approved the rule for floor debate on the fiscal 2005 budget resolution, which has languished in the Senate due to an unrelated disagreement over tax cut offsets. Without a budget resolution in place, Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has been limited to an overall spending target of $814.2 billion for fiscal 2005, the level set by last year's budget resolution.

"That's a $7 billion hole that's in everyone's best interests to get rid of," said one aide familiar with the talks.

The maneuver allows conferees on the Defense appropriations bill to remove the emergency designation Stevens placed on $7.2 billion in Pentagon funds in the Senate version, which he was forced to do to get around the fiscal 2004 budget cap. With a deeming resolution in place on the Defense spending bill to boost the Senate's allocation to $821.9 billion, equal to the House number, Stevens would not have to cut $7.2 billion from other, non-defense spending bills to come into compliance with last year's budget.

It also prevents a situation in the House where -- if it had receded to the Senate position and classified the $7.2 billion as an emergency -- it would have freed up additional billions under the House's allocation and angered GOP fiscal conservatives in the process. The move also allows Stevens to set formal 302(b) limits for his 13 subcommittees -- and thus enable him to raise 60-vote points of order against attempts to increase spending through amendments on the floor. But given time constraints, Senate GOP leaders are still expected to bring an omnibus to the floor in September, after the House sends over a vehicle.

COMMENTS

• This Congress continues to amaze me with how much this nation wastes each year on its budget process, or the lack of a budget. First, Congress continues to place dillions in the hands of a Defense Department that can't manage a budget, they have wasteful spending that is out of control, such as billions of credit card debt, lost billions of taxpayer money without an explanation for the loss and we continue to give them the control of more billions to waste. As evidenced by the earmarked funds of 1991 to restore the 5th wedge at the Pentagon, it took them 10 years to almost complete the project, before the alleged airplane struck the west side of the building, quick numbers of $750 million was asked to complete the project, and it was fully complete in one year, which seems very questionable. In closing, I am calling for another agency to control the funds of the Pentagon, it makes sense, if, they can't handle their own budget someone has to handle it for them. Lawrence D. Pierce Posted July 15, 2004 2:25 PM