Senate Panel Begins Debate on Budget Resolution

GREG HITT NAFTALI BENDAVID

WASHINGTON -- The Senate Budget Committee began debating amendments to the Senate's budget framework for next fiscal year as tensions persist between congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama on his $3.6 trillion budget plan.

Obama Lobbies for Budget on Capitol Hill

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President Obama meets fellow Democrats in the Senate to try to shore up support for his $3.6 trillion budget blueprint. Republicans and some conservative Democrats have balked at the plan and are pushing to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Obama's spending request. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Wednesday, Mr. Obama urged Democrats to maintain party unity and preserve his fiscal priorities, and congressional leaders are largely doing so. But important differences are emerging over issues such as climate change and health care, as well as spending.

Democratic leaders in both chambers are pushing packages that call for narrower deficits and less spending than proposed by the White House. And those levels could go lower, especially in the Senate, where moderate Democrats from conservative states will be an important factor in the debate on the floor next week.

Democratic moderates are pressing for even further spending cuts, especially in domestic programs. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, one of those centrists, said more needs to be done to rein in spending. "This is a good direction, but I'd like to see it even lower," Mr. Nelson said.

Significantly, both the House and Senate decided to abandon a White House request for additional money for the Wall Street rescue. The two chambers also don't intend to invoke special legislative powers -- known as "reconciliation" -- that would allow climate-change legislation to avoid a filibuster in the Senate. That means any bill designed to control harmful emissions will have to attract 60 votes in the Senate, essentially ensuring any climate-change bill will require Republican support.

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Reuters

U.S. President Barack Obama is escorted into the Senate Democratic Caucus luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday.

Still up in the air is whether legislation designed to expand access to health care, another major Obama administration priority, will receive those filibuster-proof protections. The House budget does provide such protection, and sets a Sept. 29 deadline for committees to act on a bill. The Senate budget, however, is silent on the issue.

The Democratic efforts to scale back Mr. Obama's spending won no praise from Republicans, who said Wednesday that the Democratic spending plans would run the federal debt up to unsustainable levels. "At what point do you say enough's enough?" said Jeb Hensarling of Texas, as the House Budget Committee opened debate on the initiative.

White House budget chief Peter Orszag said the congressional plans "may not be identical twins to what the president submitted, but they are certainly brothers that look an awful lot alike."

Several senators said Mr. Obama, in a closed-door meeting that ran for nearly an hour, made a pitch for preservation of his priorities, and for Democrats to stick together as the budget resolutions move out of committee this week and onto the House and Senate floors next week.

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Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Kent Conrad, surrounded by reporters Wednesday after a Democratic caucus with President Obama.

"The president is a forceful advocate," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.).

But amid the press for unity, the House and Senate documents reflect tensions among Democrats, especially demands from moderates that spending on basic government be pulled back from levels proposed by the president.

Under the Senate budget, spending on basic government services -- outside of defense and benefit programs like Medicare -- would grow 7% to $525 billion in fiscal 2010, below the more than 10% increase sought by the president.

Over five years, the Senate budget cuts $160 billion from the president's proposal for basic government. The House's budget would be somewhat more generous next year, providing $532.6 billion for basic government, which includes spending on everything from homeland security and international programs to environmental cleanup and the cost of fighting forest fires.

The House blueprint cleared the House Budget Committee late Wednesday and is expected to survive intact when it hits the floor next week.

Adoption of the budget establishes a spending-and-revenue blueprint for Congress. But action will still be needed later this year on bills to accomplish those goals. Differences between the House and Senate fiscal blueprints will be reconciled later this spring, as leaders of the two chambers forge a compromise plan.