House, Senate budget panels clear $3 trillion spending plans

Defeating Republican efforts to preserve President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and impose a moratorium on earmarks, Democrats pushed a $3 trillion fiscal 2009 spending plan through the House Budget Committee shortly after midnight. On a straight party-line 22-16 vote, Democrats adopted the budget after defeating numerous Republican amendments aimed at stopping what they thought were inevitable tax increases as Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010.

Meanwhile, the Senate Budget Committee Thursday afternoon approved its budget resolution on 12-10 party-line vote, after adopting amendments dealing with transparent budgeting, reserve funds for pediatric dental care and health information technology, and caps on farm commodity payments.

The House budget resolution also contains reconciliation protection for a one-year fix of the alternative minimum tax to prevent it from affecting an increasing number of middle-class households. Republicans unsuccessfully offered amendments to set aside $330 billion to accommodate the proposed healthcare plan of presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. Republicans joined Democrats in voting against it. Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., then offered an amendment allotting $195 billion for the proposed healthcare plan of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., which also was defeated.

The House bill would boost domestic spending while rejecting President Bush's fiscal 2009 budget proposals to slash spending for Medicare and Medicaid by more than $150 billion and make deep cuts in an array of other programs, including education, alternative energy, the environment, economic development and infrastructure improvement and low-income heating assistance. The biggest spending increase would be a $50 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The measure would also boost spending on veterans' health care by $3.6 billion and education by $3.8 billion. The bill authorizes the $573 billion in fiscal 2009 defense funds sought by the president but would not earmark money for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., noted that Bush had not requested specific allocations for the conflicts next year.

Reprising their stance in last year's budget debate, Republicans argued that the Democratic measure would trigger "the largest tax increase in American history" by failing to provide for the extension of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts when they lapse next year. Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., charged that the increased domestic spending in the bill would be financed with $683 billion a year in savings "assumed" from the expiration of the tax cuts. The committee defeated Republican attempts to target specific taxes that they argued would return to pre-2001 levels if allowed to expire. Democrats also voted down an amendment from Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, that would have preserved the elimination of the "marriage tax," an amendment by Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, that would have set aside $180.5 billion for estate tax relief and an effort by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., to prevent the child tax credit from being reduced from $1,000 to $500.