House chairman plans agressive budget action in fall

Congress may be heading into a month-long recess, but House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, is already looking ahead to a busy September as top cop on the budget enforcement beat.

Noting that "the hardest of all the work is about to begin" in September, the final month of the federal fiscal year, Nussle sketched out an aggressive committee agenda for the fall. It includes marking up budget process legislation, which would encompass provisions to reauthorize the so-called pay-as-you-go rules for mandatory spending and the statutory caps on discretionary spending, and possibly creation of an emergency reserve fund.

Also on the markup slate is legislation Nussle proposed last week to require OMB to sequester discretionary funds. Such an action would ensure the government hits the budget resolution's debt payment target of $155 billion if the Congressional Budget Office's mid session economic update this month projects a smaller fiscal 2001 surplus than had been expected.

In addition, Nussle wants to hold oversight hearings into the accuracy of Congressional Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget economic projections.

On Friday, Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and House Majority Whip Tom Delay, R-Texas, released a letter to President Bush signed by 150 House members--including 11 appropriators-- encouraging Bush "to exercise your constitutional power to veto appropriations bills that you believe are inconsistent with our shared budgetary objectives. We further pledge to uphold those vetoes in the House." Sens. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Jim Bunning, R-Ky., released a similar letter earlier this year. A spokesman for House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D- Wis., responded that the letter was issued "despite the fact [that Republicans] are simultaneously pushing a massive over- budget increase in defense and have sponsored huge increases in emergency spending just last week," in the form of $1.3 billion in emergency FEMA funding that DeLay added to the VA-HUD spending bill.

Obey slammed Republicans for including in their energy bill "$33 billion in surplus-raiding tax subsidies for the wealthiest oil and gas corporations."