Budget talks making only slow progress

The Senate adjourned for the week Thursday, one day after the House, still with no budget plan in place and prospects in doubt for an agreement next week.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., said talks would continue next week with House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, in hopes of getting an agreement on pay/go budget enforcement rules.

"I hope we don't get bogged down," Nickles said. "I don't like 'deeming'" a top-line, discretionary appropriations number in lieu of a budget resolution, he added.

The fiscal 2005 budget resolution would set a spending cap of $821 billion, and Nickles said if negotiators could not agree on a budget, then appropriations probably would be capped at the $814 billion limit set in last year's budget blueprint.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said through a spokeswoman it was "premature" to discuss options for moving appropriations bills without a budget agreement, adding he was "fighting for a budget [resolution]" to prevent the possibility of having to live under last year's cap, among other reasons.

House GOP leaders rejected an offer Wednesday from Nickles and Senate leaders to put in place pay/go rules for three years, while exempting three tax cuts expiring this year from offset requirements.

Senate aides said they would keep working to find a solution that could get 51 votes while appeasing House leaders. "Nobody's giving up. We're going to keep plowing through," said Eric Ueland, deputy chief of staff to Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.