Budget resolutions come into focus

As the House and Senate Budget committees prepare to take up their respective budget resolutions this week, Democratic and Republican lawmakers expect Congress to pass a budget blueprint this year that reflects the goals set out in President Obama's fiscal 2010 outline.

"This is a very clear statement of goals by the president," Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., vice chairwoman of the House Budget Committee, said late last week.

Obama presented Congress last month with his $3.6 trillion fiscal 2010 outline that focused on reforming health care; implementing a cap-and-trade bill that would limit greenhouse gas emissions while raising revenue for middle-class tax cuts and renewable-energy research; and improving education.

"Those of us that agree with [Obama], and I am one of them and I think the Democratic Caucus is one of them, want to get there," Schwartz said. "It is our job as members of Congress to work out those details in bills going forward."

She added that the resolution will also reflect the need to rein in the deficit as the economy recovers and the panel remains on track to take up the resolution on Wednesday. Action on the House floor is expected next week.

Democrats remained undaunted in light of new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office that projected the budget deficit would top $1.8 trillion, or 13.1 percent of gross domestic product, under initiatives proposed in the Obama plan. As a percentage of GDP, the deficit never gets below 4 percent over the 10-year budget window.

House Speaker Nany Pelosi, D-Calif., said that regardless of what was expected in the CBO projections, "our priorities are the same."

House Budget Committee ranking member Paul Ryan, R-Wis., agreed the Democrats will manage to pass a budget resolution this year, though he contends it would be harmful to the economy because it spends too much and raises taxes, particularly the cap-and-trade initiative.

"I think they will get it out of committee and pass it largely intact," Ryan said last week. "They don't want to defeat their new president's signature agenda coming out of the gates; that would be a pretty big failure."

However, "they do so at their own peril" because "tax increases are lethal for our economy," he said. "Where I come from, cap-and-trade is death to manufacturing."

House budget writers will have to contend with the Blue Dog Coalition, which late last week released a raft of guidelines for the resolution, which included capping nondefense domestic spending increases to the rate of inflation, and barring use of budget reconciliation to get around a Senate filibuster to pass a cap-and-trade program.

The group is concerned that creating a cap-and-trade program will pit regions of the country that have plentiful renewable resources against regions that rely on traditional energy resources, such as coal.

Aiming to ensure fairness, the Blue Dogs oppose using reconciliation for the cap-and-trade initiative.

However, House and Senate Democratic leaders and the White House last week said that it remains an option, potentially for healthcare reform and shifting federal student loans into the direct-loan program administered by the Education Department.

But with the opposition from the Blue Dogs and eight Senate Democrats who have come out against using reconciliation to help pass a cap-and-trade bill, it has become a less-attractive option.

Under reconciliation, only 51 votes in the Senate would be required to pass a bill, rather than the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said on Thursday he could envision a scenario where the House includes reconciliation instructions in its resolution and the Senate does not in order to keep it as an option during conference negotiations. But he stressed he takes his cues on the budget from Budget Committee leaders.

Schwartz said "it is one of the possibilities we are looking at." She added that "we will always seek to work in a bipartisan way if we possibly can," but using reconciliation remains an option.

In the Senate, Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., has been adamant against using reconciliation for such reasons, because it is limited to legislation that has a fiscal impact, which makes many healthcare changes, for example, subject to the Byrd rule, which bars extraneous provisions from being included in a reconciliation bill. It takes 60 votes to waive the Byrd rule.

The Senate Budget Committee is planning to mark up its resolution on Wednesday and Thursday, with action on the floor expected next week.

Conrad last week said he feels confident he can get a resolution through the Senate.

So does Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who has been very critical of the budget's tax proposals.

"I think it is possible we will see some alteration," said Sessions, a member of the Budget Committee. "But the Democratic majority is very large in the Senate. It can be passed with a simple majority, 51 votes. Senators are loath to challenge their newly elected president. I think there will be a lot of pressure on them to pass it as it is" or with few significant changes.

Budget writers in the Senate will have to contend with a group of moderate Democrats who want to trim spending and oppose the use of reconciliation to pass contentious legislation.

"If they are looking at reconciliation with a lot of things in it, such as cap-and-trade, I would have a major problem with that," said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., a moderate who opposes using reconciliation for the climate change bill, thinks it will be a challenge to get a resolution through the Senate, but expects one to get through.

"We will see how we pull this thing together," Pryor said. "I would like to see it pass, obviously. I'd like for it to be bipartisan, if possible, we can have it that way. Part of this depends on if the Republicans are going to work with the administration and Democrats in the House and Senate to try to get something that they can agree to or are they just going to say 'no.' I am not sure if anybody knows that yet."