Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., are working on an emerging agreement that should allow the Budget Committee to proceed to opening statements on the Senate's fiscal 2001 budget resolution Tuesday and consideration of amendments Wednesday, according to Senate GOP sources.
"I think we're very close, but we have some finishing touchups," Domenici said Friday.
This development, which still must pass muster with the committee's 10 other Republicans, comes nearly a week after the markup had to be postponed because Gramm and three other conservatives on the panel refused to support Domenici's draft budget-saying it would allow too much spending next year without sufficient provisions to ensure fiscal responsibility.
In a key development, Domenici agreed to change some of his policy assumptions for the non-defense discretionary baseline for FY2000 to reflect Gramm's proposal.
After several meetings this week, the three principals were able to work out something to satisfy Gramm's push for mechanisms to enforce fiscal discipline and Domenici's insistence that total FY2001 spending be set at a realistic level-which he and House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, had agreed should be $596.5 billion in budget authority, up slightly from the FY2000 enacted spending level of $586 billion.
While Domenici was able to hold the line at $596.5 billion, Gramm got assurances from Lott and Domenici in part by working with like-minded House conservatives, who earlier this week won concessions from their own leadership in return for their votes for Kasich's FY2001 budget plan. The latter passed the House by 211-207 shortly after midnight Thursday.
House GOP conservatives won budget provisions to prohibit use of directed scorekeeping changes and advanced appropriations beyond the current level of $23 billion in the House's FY2001 spending bills-along with commitments from Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., to fight for the House-set spending limits for the 13 individual appropriations bills in conference with the Senate.
Building on those agreements, as well as a deal cut to devote at least $4 billion of this year's on-budget surplus to debt reduction, Gramm, Lott and Domenici are currently discussing limiting FY2002 advanced spending to roughly $12 billion to $14 billion, or the amount advanced for education.
Elements of the tentative Gramm-Lott-Domenici deal would cover what one GOP source referred to as "gimmick control"-such as reinstating limits on emergency designations, language on pay date shifts, and control of subcommittee spending levels.
Meanwhile, Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew Thursday sent a letter to Hastert and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., decrying the House Republican FY2001 budget blueprint, saying the plan's costs exceed on-budget surplus projections over the next five years.
"The resolution creates room for the tax cut through an unrealistic assumption that Congress will be able to pass deep cuts in domestic discretionary spending," Lew wrote, charging that it would force a return to "gimmicks" to make it balance out.