House budget panel takes aim at 'waste'

As the Senate continued voting Thursday on amendments to its fiscal 2005 budget resolution, the House Budget Committee began work on its own plan, which Republicans said would reduce the deficit by essentially freezing non-defense, discretionary spending and reducing waste in government programs.

The House plan, crafted by Budget Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, calls for $819 billion in discretionary spending for fiscal 2005 -- about $2 billion less than the Senate proposes. "This is clearly not the budget any one of us would like to write," Nussle said at the start of the markup.

Senate Republicans were defeating numerous Democratic amendments to trim tax cuts in order to increase spending on popular programs. But many amendments remained, and Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., warned of votes deep into the evening.

After delaying the start of the House committee markup by two hours, Nussle announced the panel would return next Wednesday to finish its work. At that time, Nussle said it also would take up separate legislation to introduce pay/go rules that could require new mandatory and discretionary spending and new tax cuts to be offset with spending reductions or revenue increases.

Before quitting for the week, the committee dealt with five amendments. Only one -- offered by Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., to boost veterans' benefits by $200 million to care for casualties of the Iraq war -- was adopted, while four Democratic proposals were defeated along party lines.

Those amendments included one by Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., to make it harder to protect President Bush's tax cuts against parliamentary points of order; one by Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, to add $2.5 billion to improve the quality of life for military and reserve families; one by Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., to count as income funds that federal health programs save from the importation of prescription drugs; and one by Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., to add $6.2 billion in spending for public school Pell grants and training for disabled students.

Nussle and other Republicans on the panel stressed the need to control spending and reduce "waste, fraud and abuse" to reduce the deficit. The GOP plan directs lawmakers to find $13 billion in savings over five years by cutting unspecified waste in government programs.

Nussle's plan essentially holds non-defense and non-homeland-security, discretionary spending at fiscal 2004 levels. After initially proposing to reduce President Bush's defense spending request by 0.5 percent, Nussle's plan instead would provide the 7.1 percent boost the White House sought.

Despite that change, Nussle said his plan would begin the process of reducing the deficit, cutting it from a projected $521 billion in fiscal 2004 to $377.6 billion in 2005 and $235 billion by 2009.

The budget resolution would provide reconciliation protection for $137.6 billion in expiring tax cuts over five years. It also includes $50 billion for a reserve fund to pay for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Budget ranking member John Spratt, D-S.C., argued both the Nussle plan and the president's budget hide the true costs of their proposals over the long run. The president's budget "amounts to a deliberate choice to put tax cuts above deficit reduction," he said.

Spratt also expressed regret Nussle had relented on proposed reductions in Bush's military spending request. He and other Democrats argued the deficit could not be reduced by spending cuts alone.

Peter Cohn and David Hess contributed to this report.