OBSTACLES IN MIRROR ARE LARGER THAN THEY APPEAR

April 19, 2006

If you follow the budget process in Congress, you would have been impressed by what the Senate managed to accomplish in late March, when it passed a budget resolution that sets out a blueprint for spending for fiscal year 2007.  You also might have been surprised that the House left town for two weeks, after failing to pass its own version of a spending plan.

The Senate's action is impressive, not because passing a budget resolution is a unique accomplishment, but because in a mid-term election year already fraught with partisan bickering, it seemed unlikely that a consensus could be found.  In fact, even Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), the bill's author, had predicted its downfall.

Background on the budget process 

The idea of setting annual spending targets was implemented when Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.  That law requires Congress to adopt at least one budget resolution each year, a concurrent resolution (meaning that it does not have to be signed by the President) that sets aggregate spending limits along broad functional lines, e.g. health, education, agriculture, transportation, etc.       

The Budget Act requires that the House-Senate conference report on a budget resolution also allocate a specific amount to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, essentially telling them how much is available to spend on programs within their jurisdiction.  The committees, in turn, divide the allocation among the appropriations subcommittees (the so-called 302 (b) allocations), allowing them to begin marking up their respective appropriations bills.

Addressing health and education needs

During this year's Senate debate over the budget resolution, Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) proposed an amendment that would essentially free up $7 billion to be allocated for health and education programs that they felt had been short-changed over the past few years.  In building their case, Specter and Harkin noted that tight budgets, plus the effects of inflation, had left the centerpiece of the government's social programs at least $15 billion below where they were just three years ago.  Their $7 billion amendment would allow the Appropriations Committee to restore at least a portion of that.

As the old adage goes, "When politicians feel the heat, they see the light."  Senate offices were barraged with calls and emails from constituents, demanding that the Specter-Harkin amendment be adopted.  In the end, the amendment passed by a wide margin, 73 to 27.

Awaiting House action

After Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) was unable to replicate the Specter-Harkin amendment during the House Budget Committee mark-up, a group of Republican moderates, led by Reps. Mike Castle (R-DE) and Nancy Johnson (R-CT), proposed offering a floor amendment adding $7 billion to the $873 billion cap on discretionary spending requested by President Bush. 

However, the moderates' effort to boost funding for health, education and other domestic programs ran counter to those of the conservative Republican Study Committee, whose members were calling for less, not more, spending.  Indeed, conservatives were demanding a package of new budget enforcement measures that included rules on earmarks, line-item rescission powers and a sunset commission intended to make it easier to eliminate federal programs.

Lastly, the House Appropriations Committee, led by its chairman, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), balked over new rules that would have diluted his committee's power over the purse by ceding some of that power to the Budget Committees.

This three-way, intra-party struggle left the Republican leadership with no majority for the House budget resolution, forcing it to pull the plug, postponing any further attempts to pass a budget resolution until the House returns to work April 24.    

It is difficult to predict when—or if—the House is able to pass the resolution.  If it does, it seems unlikely that a House-Senate conference committee could reach a consensus before May 15, when the House Appropriations Committee begins marking up spending bills.