Budget issues on front burner as Congress returns from spring break
Congress returns from its two-week spring recess to face the second round of the fiscal 2002 budget debate, as representatives of the House and Senate Budget committees head to conference to seek compromises on their chambers' respective budget resolutions.
The task before them is daunting, given the wide differences between the House and Senate budgets. The House version essentially mirrors President Bush's budget submission to Congress, while the Senate passed a compromise budget resolution April 6.
Before the recess, the Senate appointed its budget conferees-- including Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Majority Whip Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm of Texas for the Republicans, and Budget ranking member Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Commerce ranking member Ernest (Fritz) Hollings of South Carolina and Banking ranking member Paul Sarbanes of Maryland for Democrats.
The House is expected to appoint conferees when members return for votes Tuesday, with an eye to formally convening the conference committee for an initial meeting Wednesday.
Conferees must strike a balance between the House-passed tax cut of $1.63 trillion and the Senate's smaller, 10-year number of $1.18 trillion. At the same time, conferees must decide on a compromise between the House's FY02 discretionary spending level of $660.6 billion and the Senate's larger figure of $688.4 billion.
Republican leaders and the Bush administration are likely to continue focusing their lobbying effort on a handful of Senate moderates from both parties. They will try to build support in the evenly divided Senate for a final budget conference report that pushes the tax cut number up and the spending number down from the budget resolution the Senate passed.
Among those likely to feel the heat are Sens. John Breaux, D- La., James Jeffords, R-Vt., Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., Max Cleland, D-Ga., and Timothy Johnson, D-S.D.
On the other hand, the moderates could exert considerable influence in the conference process. A few votes either way will make the difference in getting the conference report approved by the Senate.