Democrats plan more money for agencies

Democrats plan more money for agencies

	Published : Wed, 14 Mar 2007 01:18 By : Agencies Print this Story

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats controlling Congress plan to award domestic agencies an average budget increase of almost 5 percent as they begin drafting their response to President Bush's February budget plan.

The spending hikes are included in a budget plan to be unveiled Wednesday by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. A party-line committee vote to approve the plan is expected Thursday.

Much of the approximately $18 billion increase over Bush's budget for non-defense programs funded by Congress each year will be devoted to education and veterans medical programs. Bush's budget called for a 1 percent hike in such programs and he is sure to resist the increases as too profligate. A major showdown looms in the fall.

Bush has yet to veto a spending bill, though a threat hangs over a $124 billion Iraq war funding bill over Democrats' efforts to set a timeline to pull U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

An aide to a Budget Committee Democrat revealed the hike in domestic programs and other details about Conrad's plan. The domestic spending boost pales compared with an approximately $50 billion budget increase -- to $481 billion -- for the core Pentagon budget and $145 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush has focused his budget-cutting sword on domestic programs funded through annual spending bills, cutting congressional favorites such as grants to local law enforcement agencies and heating aid to the poor.

Other elements of Conrad's plan generally anticipate a stand-pat year. For starters, there are no plans to revisit Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, though Conrad's budget produces a surplus in five years by assuming they expire.

The annual congressional budget resolution is a nonbinding document that sets guidelines for subsequent legislation. Often -- like this year -- its most important feature is to set a 'cap' on the 12 spending bills produced by the appropriations committees.

In other years, the congressional budget blueprint eases filibuster-proof passage through the Senate of tax legislation or cuts to benefit programs like Medicare and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.

Conrad's budget plan does not anticipate fast-track action on tax or spending legislation. He dropped plans to allow filibuster-proof consideration of a must-pass bill to increase the almost $9 trillion limit on the portion of the national debt capped by law.

His plan also ensures it will be challenging for Congress to address the alternative minimum tax so that it does not ensnare almost 20 million additional taxpayers this year.

That's because Democrats have embraced a so-called pay-as-you-go budget rule requiring tax cuts to be 'paid for' with new taxes or spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. The same holds true for a five-year, $50 billion attempt to boost the number of poor children provided health care by the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

In fact, the PAYGO rule is such a challenge that some budget-watchers believe it'll be easier for lawmakers to waive it -- with support of 60 votes in the 100-member Senate -- instead of finding money elsewhere in the budget for changes to either the AMT or the SCHIP program.

Conrad's budget anticipates Bush's signature tax cuts expire at the end of 2010 as under current law. That expiration date is a product of an obscure Senate rule governing debate on Bush's 2001 tax cut law, which reduced income tax rates, eased the tax penalties on married couple and cut inheritance taxes. A 2003 follow-on bill cut taxes on investments

Bush has since called for his tax cuts to be made permanent, but Republicans never seriously tried to renew the 2001 and 2003 tax cut laws. Conrad's budget assumes Bush's tax cuts expire unless paired with huge tax increases elsewhere in the IRS code, along with better tax collections and closures of corporate tax loopholes.