White House, congressional leaders reach budget deal

Republican congressional leaders, joined by a handful of Democratic senators, Wednesday announced an agreement on a fiscal 2002 budget resolution before a meeting with President Bush at the White House.

"It's an agreement that makes a lot of sense," Bush said before meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.; Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.; Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla.; House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas; Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M.; and House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa.

They were joined by several Democrats, including Sens. John Breaux of Louisiana, Zell Miller of Georgia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, and Reps. Bud Cramer of Alabama and Gary Condit of California. Neither Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., nor House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., who criticized the deal today, were present.

"The agreement is the largest tax cut in a generation" and includes "reasonable levels of spending," Bush said.

Budget negotiators, however, were still hammering out the final details on the politically sensitive issue of discretionary spending.

Still at issue was how the 5 percent increase negotiators have agreed upon can be enforced over the course of the appropriations process, including in the designation of emergency spending.

Before the White House meeting, Domenici would not confirm that budget conferees planned to set the FY02 discretionary spending total at nearly $667 billion, but called the figure "pretty operative."

Although he cautioned the language had not been finalized, Domenici said the emergency reserve fund for FY02, which the House passed at the President's requested level of $5.6 billion, was down to about $5 billion--but the crucial matter of whether control of those funds will lie solely with the Appropriations panels had not been resolved.

Domenici also said the budget would add another $6.2 billion in FY02 to the President's education number, and would increase mandatory funding for agriculture by roughly $60 billion over 10 years, the amount in the Senate resolution.

Domenici said the budget would not increase defense above the President's number. Instead, GOP sources have indicated the budget would allow the Budget committees to adjust the defense allocation later in the year to provide for an increase based on recommendations made in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's review.