Senate budget chair takes concerns to White House

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., raised concerns at a White House meeting Thursday that President Bush may not be giving appropriators enough leeway in the fiscal 2002 budget he plans to send to Congress later this month.

Domenici was among those who went to the White House for a meeting of House and Senate Budget Committee Republicans and the President.

While Bush and Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels have indicated they want to limit any FY02 discretionary spending increase to the rate of inflation, Domenici said prior to the meeting that he was worried that the amount might be inadequate "if we find other priorities" to fund that Bush has not already identified.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, Congress appropriated $637 billion in budget authority for FY01. Adjusting for inflation, CBO set the FY02 discretionary spending baseline at $665 billion.

Domenici, who faces the daunting task of trying to get a majority vote for a budget from an evenly split committee, said: "I have to do what we think our committee... will pass. We do intend to carry out the appropriations number [as set by the budget resolution], and we expect the President to enforce it."

One of the panel's hardliners, Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, however, said an increase for inflation is plenty. Said Gramm: "I don't think we need more money. I think the President's number is probably the right number."

Bush was expected to emphasize his commitment to reining in spending--and make the case for some of his ideas on how to do so--during the meeting with GOP House and Senate Budget Committee members. Bush soon will hold a similar meeting with Democratic members of the two panels.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer pointed to one manner for reducing spending, noting that Congress would no longer have to pay an "exit fee" to get out of town--a reference to the year-end budget battles between Republicans and former President Clinton during which, in Fleischer's view, Clinton insisted on extra spending.

Also today, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., urged Domenici not to craft a budget that provides the tax bill with the protection of reconciliation--a procedural device to limit debate and bar filibusters.

"It was never the intention of those who wrote the Budget Act in 1974 for [reconciliation] to be used this way," said Byrd, who was one of the drafters. Because of the limitations on debate, he said, reconciliation "goes to the very underpinnings of why we have a United States Senate."

Byrd noted that the Reagan tax cut in 1981 was not similarly fast-tracked, saying: "We had a full debate. It went on for several days."

But Domenici responded that, more recently, the congressional budget resolution has given reconciliation protections to tax cut legislation. While Domenici said he has not decided whether to include separate reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution for Medicare legislation, he intends to do so for tax cuts.

Bush will unveil his FY02 budget in a speech to a joint session Feb. 27, sending up supporting documents the following day. Domenici said his committee hopes to hear from Daniels March 1, and from Treasury Secretary O'Neill the day after that.