Republicans worked Wednesday to try to win Congressional approval of a $2.4 trillion 2005 U.S. budget after two months of squabbling among themselves about tax cuts and the record budget deficit.
The Republican-dominated House is expected to approve the plan, which would help President Bush’s party avoid an embarrassing election-year debate on raising the nation’s debt limit for the third time in three years.
But the Senate, also controlled by Republicans, may not have enough votes to pass the one-year blueprint because a few moderate party members, concerned about the deficit, have indicated they may not vote for it.
“It is all wrong, we have to pay for our tax cuts,” said Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican from Rhode Island.
The House is expected to vote on the budget later on Wednesday or on Thursday when the Senate may also take it up.
The moderates, who want to make sure that the tax cuts at the center of Bush’s economic plan are paid for with savings from other areas of the budget, have been locked in a battle with conservative Republicans in the House.
The conservatives want to make sure their party’s tax-cutting credentials are intact ahead of the November presidential and congressional elections.
“I just can’t believe that those three or four senators are going to bring down one of the best budgets we’ve ever seen over an issue that makes it difficult for Republicans to get tax relief,” said House Republican Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
Bush tax cuts
The budget includes a one-year rule making it harder to make permanent Bush’s tax cuts. But Chafee and others had been pushing for that limit to last for several years.
The budget will include special protection making it easy to extend three popular expiring tax cuts — the child tax credit, a tax break for married couples and the 10 percent tax bracket.
Those three tax cuts even enjoy support among Democrats who usually blame Bush’s tax breaks for turning the surplus he inherited into a deficit, which is expected to reach a new record of over $400 billion this year.
The budget would give Bush the money he requested for defense and homeland security spending and assumes that military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost $50 billion in the next fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
The top Democrat on the House Budget Committee Rep. John Spratt from South Carolina, said the budget marked a “new low” because it is only for one year and said it provided no plan for reducing the deficit.
Democrats are also angry because if the budget is approved by the House and the Senate, the debate on raising the debt limit would be cut out.
“Everyone who votes for this resolution should know ... you will vote to raise the debt ceiling,” Spratt said.
The government’s debt — the accumulation of budget shortfalls — is expected to bump up against its $7.384 trillion limit sometime this summer, meaning Congress must act to raise the ceiling to continue borrowing money and avoid default.
Republicans are keen to avoid what would likely be a bitter debate with Democrats over tax cuts and fiscal policies.
