The fiscal 2000 House budget resolution unveiled Wednesday by House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, hews closely to the document laid down Tuesday by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., although it includes a smaller increase for education and less specificity on tax cuts than Domenici's mark.
Both budget resolutions would hold domestic spending under the budget caps next year, while increasing funding for defense and education.
Domenici's mark boosts education spending over the President's request by $3.3 billion in 2000, while the Kasich increase is around $2 billion. Both resolutions include about $18 billion more in defense money than fiscal 1999, and $6 billion more to respond to the farm crisis.
Unlike the Domenici mark, Kasich's budget does not include language directing toward tax cuts any on-budget surplus the Congressional Budget Office may project this summer for 2000.
Prior to the markup, Budget Committee ranking member John Spratt, D- S.C., said Democrats might offer 20 to 25 amendments in committee Wednesday, but would hold their alternative budget until the budget resolution is debated on the floor next week.
Spratt said Democrats will propose an amendment to prohibit discretionary spending beyond the statutory caps until Social Security and Medicare are "fixed." He said the Democratic budget, which adopts President Clinton's Social Security framework, would extend the life of Social Security from the insolvency date of 2032 until 2050, and would extend Medicare through 2020.
Spratt said Democrats would provide $100 billion more over five years than the GOP for discretionary spending and targeted tax cuts, and $530 billion more over 10 years-contingent on fixing Social Security and Medicare. The caps would be allowed to expire in 2002, effectively backloading the increases until 2003.
Spratt said Democrats skipped Clinton's proposed tobacco tax hike and recoupment from the states' tobacco settlement, but "we haven't given up the quest for offsets" to pay for discretionary spending in fiscal 2000 beyond the cap.
Meanwhile, Republicans got some good news on the politically sensitive Medicare issue. In a letter sent Monday to House Speaker Hastert, CBO Director Dan Crippen said the projected balance in the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund "at the end of 2009 is $141.6 billion ... [and] is likely to maintain a positive balance through 2010 and then be depleted within a few years." Earlier projections set the date of Medicare insolvency at 2008.
On the other hand, Democrats heard Wednesday from the Social Security Administration's chief actuary that the GOP's Social Security lock box proposal "would not have any significant effect on the long-range solvency" of the trust fund.
NEXT STORY: Government examines its role in urban sprawl