Senate Republicans pushing to hold line on spending

Senate Republicans are pushing to hold the line on fiscal 2005 discretionary spending at $814 billion, representing the level agreed to as part of the fiscal 2004 budget resolution, which set a preliminary number for this coming fiscal year.

In a meeting Monday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, agreed that that figure should be the basis for moving forward with a budget resolution and spending bills this year.

A top GOP aide said "814, 814" was the message that came out of the meeting.

That would mean about $4 billion worth of cuts in the White House's fiscal 2005 budget request of $818 billion in total discretionary spending, unless Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R--Okla., reports out a budget resolution next week containing more spending than allowed by the fiscal 2004 budget resolution.

Senate GOP aides said that scenario was unlikely, as Nickles is among the chamber's most outspoken budget hawks and sending a budget resolution to the floor with more spending than provided for under the 2004 resolution would subject it to points of order. Nickles has not yet set a date for the committee markup, but it is expected to be next Wednesday or Thursday.

The Budget committees set the annual "302(a)" top-line discretionary guidelines for the Appropriations committees, which then dole out "302(b)" allocations to their 13 subcommittees.

Total 2004 discretionary spending came in at around $786 billion, after a number of White House budget amendments pushed spending slightly higher than the $784.7 billion called for in the budget resolution. The Budget panels also scored total 2004 spending higher for technical reasons, largely due to certain provisions of the massive $328 billion 2004 omnibus spending bill.

The Budget committees typically use the Congressional Budget Office's interpretation of the administration's budget request. CBO will release its adjustments to the president's budget numbers Friday, and the White House discretionary total of $818 billion could well rise upon their release, a Senate GOP aide said. Discretionary spending makes up about one-third of President Bush's $2.4 trillion fiscal 2005 budget.

But even if the numbers remain close to the administration's estimate, it would still mean $4 billion in painful cuts that are likely to come out of the Pentagon's budget request, another aide said.

Defense spending under the Bush plan would rise about 7 percent to $401 billion in 2005, representing almost half the total discretionary spending in the White House request. Lawmakers have been increasingly vocal about targeting that massive pot of money to fill domestic coffers and replenish the Pentagon account in an expected 2005 supplemental.

Nevertheless, such an austere 2005 budget resolution will undoubtedly raise hackles on the other side of the aisle and perhaps among some GOP moderates.

That could make it difficult to pass in the Senate, in which case some budget hawks are already contemplating falling back on the 2004 resolution. Since it is still binding as far as 2005 spending goes, if senators want to increase spending they would still need 60 votes to overcome points of order.

"That's our ace in the hole," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., a member of the Budget Committee and a fiscal conservative.