The House Budget Committee late Wednesday approved a fiscal 1999 spending blueprint that now faces an uncertain future in the House, where moderate Republicans continue to threaten to oppose it.
Voting 22-16 along party lines, the Budget panel also defeated every major Democratic amendment offered during the daylong markup.
Following the markup, House Budget Chairman Kasich expressed confidence that the House will approve his plan, saying members should be willing to accept a plan that simply cuts spending 1 percent.
"This penny on a dollar thing is a very doable thing," he said. Kasich also left open the possibility that the resolution ultimately will contain additional tax cuts beyond those contained in the plan to phase out the so-called marriage penalty.
While Kasich expressed confidence that his plan will pass, moderate Republicans continue to protest, telling Majority Whip DeLay at lunch Wednesday that they still have the votes to derail the plan over the $100 billion in spending cuts.
Asked if moderates are sticking together, Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., said, "Right now, but [Republican leaders] have time to work and they're very good at it."
Castle expressed dismay that Republican appropriators are now supporting the plan after being assured that the FY99 spending bills would be funded at the budget caps contained in last year's balanced budget plan.
Castle called the appropriators' position "shortsighted," adding that necessary cuts simply become more difficult in later years.
However, House Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Edward Porter, R-Ill., said appropriators are only worried about this year's funding levels.
"No Congress can bind a future Congress," he said, adding that the Budget Committee "has no jurisdiction to make outyear cuts. They can say they're making them, but they're not."
Democrats Wednesday offered a series of alternative proposals, almost all of which were defeated on party-line votes.
The Republicans killed a Democratic plan stating that the surplus must be used for shoring up Social Security.
The Republicans also defeated Democratic proposals to restore Medicare funding cuts in the Democratic plan and to restore all non-defense discretionary spending to the levels called for in last year's budget plan.
The GOP also fought off Democratic proposals to provide tax breaks for school construction, to fund programs to decrease class size and to allow people ages 55-46 to buy into the Medicare program.
The Republicans also rejected a plan to add a version of the patients' bill of rights to the budget, to boost special education funding and to establish a fund for the tobacco settlement.
Asked when the budget may come to the floor, Kasich joked, "The week after we get back, the week after that or the week after Christmas."
However, Budget ranking member John Spratt, D-S.C., said a budget conference is going to be so late that appropriators will already have begun their appropriations bills by the time a conference agreement is reached.
A budget plan is "almost moot by the end of June," Spratt said. In a related development, House appropriators are expected to consider tentative subcommittee allocations today.
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