Appropriations chairman endorses Bush spending levels

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said Tuesday he would refuse to amend the fiscal 2002 budget resolution to increase spending beyond levels recommended by President Bush, when the Senate considers the budget plan next month.

Also on Tuesday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., told reporters he intends to write a fiscal 2002 budget resolution based on the blueprint President Bush submitted to Congress last month and "let the Senate work its will" to amend it. That blueprint calls for $1.6 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years and total fiscal 2002 discretionary spending of $660.7 billion, 4 percent over the fiscal 2001 level of $635 billion. Although both Stevens and Domenici both have questioned the 4 percent spending increase, neither appeared willing to push for more. Instead, Stevens indicated he might wait until later in the budget process to propose statutory spending caps, which might be required regardless of spending levels in the budget resolution. Stevens, who sought but was denied a seat on the Budget Committee at the outset of the 107th Congress, said: "I'm not going to offer any amendment to the budget resolution.... I'm not going to seek to increase that [discretionary spending] number."