Senate budget chief lobbies hard for spending plan

The tenacity of Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., in lobbying his Senate colleagues on the fiscal 2005 budget resolution could be beginning to bear fruit, although he was not ready to pronounce victory Monday.

"We're hopeful we can get it done this week," Nickles said after emerging from a lengthy discussion with Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. Snowe is among the handful of holdouts who could decide the fate of this year's budget blueprint.

The measure remains stuck in conference in a dispute over "pay/go" rules. The Senate version would require offsets for any new tax cut and entitlement spending legislation over the course of the five-year budget resolution, while the House version would not apply pay/go to tax cuts.

Nickles and Snowe had an animated talk on the Senate floor Monday, with Snowe appearing to take notes and asking numerous questions of Nickles about GOP leaders' latest concoction -- a one-year budget plan including tax provisions that would sunset next year. Snowe could not immediately be reached for comment.

The measure would provide for a one-year extension of tax cuts expiring this year -- the $1,000 per child tax credit, standard deduction for married couples and expansion of the 10 percent income bracket -- at a $13 billion cost.

Negotiators are also leaning toward including a one-year patch to keep more taxpayers from paying the alternative minimum tax, bringing the one-year tax cut price tag to $22 billion.

The tax provisions would be included in reconciliation, which protects them against a filibuster and exempts them from pay/go rules.

The budget would technically span five years, as required by the 1974 law establishing the congressional budget process. However, the proposal would lock in policy assumptions for the coming fiscal year, leaving future decisions about spending and tax legislation for revisiting next year.

Having exhausted numerous other options for bridging the gap between the House and Senate on pay/go, Nickles is making the pitch that the only alternative could be no budget resolution -- meaning no tax cut reconciliation bill and leaving debt limit increase legislation subject to a filibuster.

Nickles also met with Sens. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Monday to press his case.

"The difference is between no deal and a bad deal. I'm trying to decide which is less desirable," Nelson said. He added that he was wary of a "Groundhog Day" scenario, where lawmakers have to revisit the pay/go and reconciliation issue again next year.

Chafee long has opposed a pay/go provision that waters down the Senate version. But Monday Chafee signaled a willingness to keep his options open.

"I'm pretty resistant to further tax cuts," Chafee said, but added that Nickles explained "there are some reasons why [having] a budget could be better."

"There are some issues coming up," Chafee said, including the debt limit.

Senate GOP aides said the parliamentarian had not yet determined whether a debt limit bill could be included in reconciliation if the House uses the "Gephardt Rule" to deem the measure as having been approved by that chamber.

Aides on both sides of the aisle suggested that having a one-year tax cut could actually help the chances next year to pass more extensive and controversial tax cuts. The popularity of those expiring tax cuts "would drive the need for another tax bill next year," a House GOP leadership aide said.