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Friday, March 11, 2005
Senate Budget Committee Markup
The Senate Chairman’s Mark, which was passed by the Senate Budget Committee 12-10 (a party line vote), proposes spending $2.56 trillion in FY 2006 and $13.8 billion total over the next five years. Despite these levels, the Chairman’s Mark would cut spending for domestic discretionary programs by approximately $207 billion over five years, adjusted for inflation. In 2010 alone, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates, funding for domestic discretionary programs would be cut by 13 percent. Like the House Committee’s Mark, the Senate version claims that lowering this spending over five years will succeed in halving the deficit. The spending guidelines laid out in the Senate proposal claim to produce a $208 billion deficit in 2010. Unlike the House markup, the Senate proposal includes caps for discretionary spending for 2006, 2007, and 2008. These caps would lock in cuts for spending through 2008, and would prove to be extremely harmful for programs already on the chopping block.
The Senate Mark falls in line with the President’s request and proposes allocating $439 billion for defense and $404.5 billion for non-defense programs. Overall, this amounts to a 2.1 percent increase in spending. The Mark also proposes cuts in mandatory spending of $38 billion over five years. The Senate Finance Committee must make cuts of $15 billion over a five year period, so large cuts to Medicaid are likely.
Like the House budget blueprint, the Senate version will go to the floor sometime next week for 50 hours of debate, likely followed by final passage. Senate debate begins on Monday, at which point there will be a series of tough amendments offered by Senators on topics such as farm payments, budget enforcement rules and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Senator Feingold (D-WI), will most likely offer an amendment to create Pay-go rules requiring offsets for new tax cuts or entitlement spending. Under the Senate Chairman’s Mark, roughly $70 billion in tax cuts for the next five years would not require offsets.
Posted by Becky Lewis
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