|
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Budget Res. Sets Up Congress-White House Conflicts
The congressional budget resolution that appears likely to be approved by the House and Senate today sets up some clear struggles between Congress and the administration. Three of the most salient such struggles ahead, from least to most significant, will be:
- Paying for Tax Cuts: The budget resolution projects a federal budget surplus of $41 billion in 2012, arrived at by assuming the expiration of Bush's "investment" tax cuts on capital gains and dividends and income taxes that benefit the wealthy. Unless the administration challenges these assumptions, the pre-2001 rates will be restored, bringing in tens of billions in new revenue, annually. But whichever tax cuts aren't extended will need to be paid for. This is where the "Largest Tax Hike in History" chorus chimes in, with the "All Tax Cuts Paid For" trying to drown it out.
- Social Funding Exceeding Bush's Caps: The resolution calls for aggregate discretionary spending of $23 billion above the president's request (including $2 billion in advance appropriations). OMB Director Portman has threatened to shot down appropriations funding for education, and health care for children and veterans. The administration is betting on congressional GOP members sticking by them in vetoing new funding for highly popular social programs.
- Whose Budget Is This, Anyway?: The struggle over the authorship of the budget and, to some degree, over the direction of domestic policy, is inherent in the outcome of these two conflicts, and others. As difficult as the administration may make it for Congress to implement its resolution, the resolution, i.e., Congress' budget, stands a fair chance to become the blueprint for the nation's budget policy, rather than the budget proposal the president submitted to Congress back in February.
Posted by Dana Chasin
|