Senate panel narrowly approves fiscal 2007 budget plan

A divided Senate Budget Committee delivered a $2.8 trillion fiscal 2007 budget blueprint to the floor Thursday, where it is expected to consume an entire week of debate as the two parties continue their long struggle over spending priorities and a plan to drill for oil in Alaska.

After his panel approved the document on a party-line 11-10 vote, Budget Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said the Senate will begin hashing through it Monday.

"I expect we'll not get to a final vote until the end of next week," he said, noting sharp distinctions between Republicans and Democrats over spending for health care, environmental protection, education and myriad other issues.

Gregg's budget once again assumes a $3 billion increase in revenue from opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, although its instructions to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee specify only the amount of revenue.

But his plan offers political carrots for passing a limited reconciliation bill opening ANWR by dedicating $1.05 billion of the resulting revenue to additional spending on land and water conservation, Forest Legacy and coastal and estuarine land protection programs.

An attempt last year to open ANWR through language in a larger budget reconciliation bill was defeated when Republican moderates opposed it, and a similar battle should be expected this year.

"The tactic of an 'Arctic-only' budget reconciliation finally pulls back the curtains and reveals the true political agenda hidden in the budget resolution: isolating the Arctic drilling provision in an attempt to twist the rules and avoid meaningful debate on an extremely controversial issue," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope.

Gregg has portrayed his budget proposal as a stand-pat plan for the next few fiscal years, proposing no big changes in mandatory programs or the GOP's current no-new-taxes policy. Even so, overall discretionary spending would rise about 3.6 percent in fiscal 2007 over this year, although the vast bulk of that increase would go toward defense, including the war in Iraq and peacekeeping in Afghanistan.

In all, the budget sets aside $873 billion for discretionary programs. Mandatory spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid would remain largely unmolested -- a decision that might strike sparks with House conservatives who are determined to rein in those programs.

Among other assumptions in the Republican plan is the expectation that the federal budget deficit will decline from an estimated $372 billion this year to $359 billion next year and $250 billion in fiscal 2008. This prediction reflects President Bush's hope of halving the deficit during his second term in office.

But Budget ranking member Kent Conrad, D-N.D., took issue with such hopes, brandishing his trademark graphic predicting the GOP's latest budget blueprint does little to slow the burgeoning growth of the nation's total debt.

"If you like debt, you'll love this budget," Conrad declared. He said the Gregg plan -- which does not consider the cost of government borrowing for debt service and the need to address the alternative minimum tax -- will add to the national debt over each of the next five years by more than $600 billion, at a time when retiring baby boomers will begin drawing Social Security reserves and jacking up the costs of Medicare.

Gregg insisted his plan is "a responsible one," and retorted that if amendments offered by Democrats had been accepted, the debt would have been even higher.