Bush, GOP leaders to confer on budget negotiations

As congressional budget writers prepare to go to conference on the fiscal 2002 budget resolution Wednesday, aides said a Tuesday morning meeting at the White House with top House and Senate GOP leaders, and the Budget and Appropriations committee chairmen will be crucial in determining the final budget resolution numbers for the president's tax cut and next year's discretionary spending level.

Aides also pointed out that while House and Senate Budget Committee staffers have covered a lot of ground in reconciling their respective chambers' differing versions of the budget plan, no decisions can be made until Republican leaders get back to town and begin surveying members and senators about what levels of tax cuts and spending they could support.

Prior to the recess, the House approved a budget resolution that endorsed President Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut and fiscal 2002 spending outlays of $660.6 billion, while the 50-50 Senate adopted a smaller tax cut of $1.18 trillion and a heftier spending total of $688.4 billion.

"They still have some big decisions to make, and members have to get back into town," commented one GOP aide. "We've got to find out where the votes are, and it all depends on what the White House wants to do."

Aides said it is possible, but not necessarily likely, that budget conferees will finish this week. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said today it is "too early to tell" what the final size of the tax cut will be, but reiterated his assessment that GOP leaders "will not pass a $1.6 trillion tax cut because the votes are not there."

Daschle would not, however, comment on whether a compromise tax cut of $1.4 trillion could pass. White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer today refused to comment on the level of taxes or spending Bush would accept, saying only that Bush would push for tax relief "as close to $1.6 trillion" as possible.

One Senate aide predicted GOP leaders and conferees would rather easily end up splitting the difference on the tax cut, leaving them at $1.4 trillion. The far harder task, said this source, will be setting a final spending total--although sources have reported that, in staff discussions so far, the Senate has already come down off its high-water mark of $688.4 billion in agreeing to drop some of the costly amendments that were added during the Senate floor debate.

A top Senate GOP aide calculated that the Senate could support a budget resolution conference report that provides "a little bit more on taxes" than $1.18 trillion but that it "will have to bear less on spending" than the roughly 8 percent increase in discretionary spending approved in the Senate-passed budget.

On the House side, one GOP aide commented that the House's job may be one of "managing disappointment" among conservatives who want to stick with the House position.