House conservatives to make case for balanced budget

With the economic stimulus package set to be pulled from the Senate floor Wednesday, House conservatives are increasingly optimistic they can make a case for a balanced budget in fiscal 2003.

Conservatives point out that although the $2.13 trillion 2003 budget President Bush submitted to Congress Monday projects an $80 billion deficit, the deficit is due almost entirely to the $77 billion that the Office of Management and Budget estimates a stimulus bill could cost next year.

House Budget Committee member Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee's budget task force, said Tuesday evening that absent a stimulus plan, "there is no reason to believe it is not possible" to balance the 2003 budget. Republican Study Committee members, he said, are quietly but vigorously making that case to their leadership and fellow members.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., decided Tuesday to pull the plug on Senate consideration of economic stimulus measures if two scheduled cloture votes failed Wednesday, as expected. Daschle's move "is certainly going to help us with momentum on this argument," Toomey said. "This is on everybody's radar screen."

Even with a $31 billion increase in defense and homeland security, as well as other spending increases the White House proposes for 2003, OMB projects a total budget deficit of just $3 billion without the stimulus plan. Conservatives said closing the $3 billion gap not only is possible, but "immensely do-able," according to an aide to one budget hawk.

But such optimism comes despite the fact that OMB's numbers assume Congress will support Bush's call to limit non-defense, non-homeland security spending to 2 percent growth, and not restore politically unpopular cuts included in the budget--such as the $9 billion cut in transportation spending.

Separately, a GOP aide said House leaders discussed what they will need to pass a budget resolution at their weekly leadership meeting Tuesday, and plan to hold a series of "listening sessions" with members through the end of the month, with an eye to scheduling a House vote on the 2003 budget plan in March.

OMB Director Mitch Daniels testified Tuesday before the House Budget Committee before news of Daschle's decision on the stimulus bill had traveled across the Capitol. But Daniels did tell Toomey during the hearing that if a stimulus plan were not enacted, he would oppose using the money it would cost for more spending.

As he did earlier Tuesday before the Senate Budget Committee, Daniels defended the president's spending and tax cut priorities against Democratic criticism that Bush's budget, over the long term, would use Social Security and Medicare trust fund surpluses to pay for existing and new tax cuts and other government programs.

House Budget ranking member John Spratt, D-S.C., said Democrats "believe that national security and homeland security don't have to come at the expense of Social Security." Spratt chastised the administration for not having a plan to dig out of the long-term Social Security trust fund deficits and resulting increases in the publicly held debt.

Daniels told Democrats that while running surpluses is a laudable goal the president shares and hopes to return to soon, his first priorities are fighting terrorism at home and abroad and promoting economic growth--priorities that can only be achieved by running deficits in the short run.

In the long run, Daniels said economic growth, coupled with programmatic reforms to the Social Security system, is ultimately more important to preparing for the baby boom generation's retirement than simply paying down debt. "The sooner we return to economic growth," Daniels said, "the sooner we'll be back here debating how much debt we can pay down."

Democrats relentlessly attacked the administration's proposal to enact another $600 billion in tax cuts, on top of last year's $1.3 trillion package, as recklessly "digging the hole deeper."

Daniels repeatedly challenged them to repeal the tax cut if they are so upset by it, telling them that since most of the cuts come in the out-years, "you'll have many, many chances to make changes," he said.