House GOP leaders seek action on budget resolution

House Republican leaders are seeking to bring the $2.7 trillion fiscal 2007 budget resolution to the floor this week, sensing victory after assuaging appropriators on new emergency funding rules.

The whip operation will spend the early part of the week working the moderate vote, betting that their olive branch on domestic spending will suffice.

House Majority Leader John Boehner's office has not yet scheduled floor action, leaving some wiggle room should a deal fall through. But GOP and Democratic aides said a vote might take place as early as Thursday, although Friday has not been ruled out due to a potentially heavy workload if House-Senate negotiators reach agreement on a $70 billion tax bill.

The budget blueprint is largely non-binding, but it would set an $873 billion fiscal 2007 discretionary spending cap, which the House leadership wants in place before bringing the first appropriations bills to the floor next week. Passing the budget would also avoid the embarrassment of being the first House leadership team to fail in that task since the process was established in 1974.

They will need to placate moderates, who are seeking $7.2 billion more in health, education and low-income energy funding than President Bush requested for fiscal 2007. Republican leaders and House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., have met them more than halfway, agreeing to shift $4.1 billion in proposed increases for defense and foreign aid to programs funded in the Labor-HHS spending bill.

"There is optimism," a GOP leadership aide said, adding "we are still making headway" with moderates and that leaders "hope to get it done this week." But several moderates are still holding out, aides said.

Any defections might prove costly, as budget resolutions generally pass by the slimmest of margins. No Democrats are expected to support it, so Republican leaders can afford to lose no more than about a dozen GOP votes.

Republican leaders saw budget negotiations blow up last month, as moderates were given few assurances on domestic spending concerns. A revolt by appropriators put the final nail in the coffin, erasing gains made among House conservatives over new emergency funding and earmark disclosure rules.

Boehner and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., resolved appropriators' earmark concerns in the lobbying overhaul measure approved last week, pledging to broaden the scope in conference to apply to other congressional committees.

They have also agreed to raise the budget's $4.4 billion limit on annual emergency spending for disaster relief by nearly $3 billion, which the Appropriations Committee argues is a more realistic estimate, considering the 10-year median average. Anything above that would require Budget Committee approval, but not a separate floor vote as envisioned earlier.

House and Senate GOP leaders have little chance of final agreement on a joint budget blueprint for fiscal 2007. That means GOP leaders will likely be unable to use reconciliation procedures to move filibuster-proof legislation opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration, as in the Senate version. They also will be unable to use the so-called "Gephardt Rule" to automatically hike the statutory debt ceiling to $9.6 trillion without a recorded vote in the House.

Democrats will nonetheless portray a vote for the budget as a vote for nearly $10 trillion in debt. Congress just enacted a $781 billion debt hike, to almost $9 trillion.

It was the fourth such increase of the debt limit in Bush's presidency; the debt ceiling stood at nearly $6 trillion when he took office.

"As the saying goes, when you are in a ditch, you should stop digging," said Tom Kahn, staff director for House Budget Committee Democrats. "The Republican budget simply digs the debt ditch even deeper."