CQ TODAY - BUDGET
Leaders Affirm Their Plans
To Cut a Budget Deal Before the Holiday
Break
By Steven T. Dennis, CQ Staff
House GOP leaders said Tuesday they are
making progress on merging their budget
savings package with the Senate's
proposed cuts, and they vowed to delay
starting the holiday recess as long as
it takes to complete a deal - perhaps as
late as Dec. 20.
The comments by House Majority Leader
Roy Blunt, R-Mo., came as
leaders focused on trying to wrap up the
package - the first budget-cutting bill
sent through the reconciliation process
in eight years.
Senate Majority Leader
Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said
Dec. 2 that he hoped to complete the
budget negotiations by Dec. 19 or 20,
and Blunt said Tuesday the House was
prepared to stay as long as the Senate
to complete a deal.
At a House leadership meeting Tuesday,
leaders also floated a possible
compromise of $45 billion in cuts over
five years. The Senate bill (S 1932)
includes savings of about $35 billion
over five years, while the House bill
(HR 4241) would cut about $50 billion.
Negotiations have yet to be completed on
a number of major differences between
the bills, including cuts to food
stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, student
loans and other programs. It will be
difficult to finish the talks this year,
given that the Senate does not return
until Dec. 12.
The biggest stumbling block remains
drilling in Alaska's Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Blunt held out
hope that ANWR drilling - which is
included in the Senate-passed bill but
not in the House version - might end up
in the final conference report, with
Sen. Ted
Stevens, R-Alaska, talking
of a plan to woo Democrats to vote for
the package.
Leaders are wrestling with balancing
concerns of moderate House members who
have vowed not to vote for a conference
report that includes drilling in ANWR,
with those of influential GOP senators
including Stevens who are staunch
proponents of ANWR energy exploration.
Stevens told House and Senate leaders
about the plan to lure Democrats last
week at a GOP retreat in St. Michaels,
Md., said Blunt. "He's discussed his
plan with me and I'd be pleased to see
it result in some House Democrats that
would like to vote for deficit
reduction, including ANWR," he said.
Yet any such plan will be tough to
implement, given that no Democrats voted
for the House budget savings package,
and it's unclear what enticements
Stevens would be able to offer them to
support drilling.
A spokeswoman for Stevens said Tuesday
that he has tried for decades to open up
ANWR for oil drilling and would continue
to push for it, but she declined to
detail his strategy.
Joe L. Barton, R-Texas,
chairman of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, a strong supporter
of ANWR drilling who reluctantly voted
for the House bill after ANWR was
stripped, said he is still hopeful it
will survive.
"The first thing it's going to require
is the Senate stating unequivocally that
ANWR has to be in the package. There are
still some House members who think the
Senate will agree to take it out. Then
we'll figure out how to find the votes
over here," Barton said.
But House moderates predicted that
Stevens would fail. Rep.
Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y.,
who voted for the House package after
ANWR was stripped from it, said he
hasn't seen any movement. "I think it's
clear that we have got the numbers . . .
I just think it's not going to happen."
Another Labor-HHS Conference
Separately, House Appropriations
Chairman Jerry
Lewis, D-Calif., said the
House would again appoint conferees on
the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations
bill (HR 3010), in another attempt to
reach agreement on a final bill after
the Nov. 17 defeat of the conference
report on the legislation. House
Appropriations spokesman John Scofield
said appropriators had made progress in
addressing the concerns of rural
lawmakers upset over budget cuts to
rural health care.
Scofield said appropriators were willing
to make "very, very modest" changes that
would amount to less than $50 million.
Meanwhile, Ways and Means Chairman
Bill Thomas, R-Calif., who voted against
the conference report, still wants to
kill a provision in the bill that would
prohibit Medicare spending on drugs such
as Viagra, though that would require
offsetting cuts elsewhere to stay under
budget caps.
Lewis also said Tuesday that he wants to
hear more from Sen.
Thad Cochran, R-Miss.,
about his proposal to double the size of
a hurricane spending package to about
$35 billion - including how the bill
would be funded - before commenting on
it. "He has been very reasonable with
me, and I'll try to be helpful," Lewis
said.
Jenny Manley, a spokeswoman for Cochran,
said Tuesday that details of the
proposal are still being formulated, and
it could include spending in addition to
the $60 billion already appropriated for
the Federal Emergency Management
Agency's disaster fund.
Rep. Mike Pence,
R-Ind., chairman of the conservative
Republican Study Committee, said Tuesday
that conservatives are not opposed to
additional spending if it is needed to
rebuild the Gulf Coast.
"Offsets are everything," he said.
"House conservatives have never been
principally concerned with whether we
should rebuild the Gulf Coast, but how
we are going to pay for it."
He also endorsed keeping the House in as
long as it takes to get a deal on budget
cuts. "The American people want fiscal
discipline for Christmas, and we should
stay until then to get it under the
tree."
