President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to rally support among skeptical Senate Democrats for his $3.6 trillion spending plan, focusing attention on the core initiatives that unite the party while downplaying the issues that divide it.Centrist Democrats who have complained that Obama's spending plan would drive the annual budget deficit to unacceptable levels held their tongues during the 45-minute lunchtime meeting. They asked no questions about deficits or about the administration's controversial push to force its signature investments in health care and education through the Senate without Republican votes.
Despite the meeting's friendly tone, tensions over those issues continued to simmer as budget leaders in both chambers worked on competing blueprints that would trim Obama's spending request and sharply curtail his plans for tax cuts - all in an effort to lower deficits over the next five years.
While acknowledging the adjustments to Obama's budget request, Democrats cheered the fact that budget leaders in both chambers would permit Obama's most ambitious and costly initiatives on health care, education and climate change to move forward as long as they do not interfere with deficit reduction.
Welcome unity
"There has to be some realism here," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "We're all unified on four main goals ... and that is not easy to do."
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag also claimed victory on the most significant aspects of the president's agenda.
"We are very pleased that the House and Senate budget committees are taking up resolutions that are fully in line with the president's key priorities," Orszag said. The blueprints under consideration "may not be identical twins to what the president submitted, but they are certainly brothers that look an awful lot alike."
In the House, Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., unveiled a spending plan that would slice more than $150 billion from Obama's proposal for the fiscal year that begins in October, reducing next year's deficit to $1.22 trillion, compared with $1.38 trillion under Obama's request. The House blueprint would cut the deficit to just under $600 billion by 2014, forcing the government to borrow $3.9 trillion over the next five years - about $500 billion less than Obama's proposal.
Much of the savings for next year would come by jettisoning Obama's plan to spend more on the Treasury Department's financial-sector bailout, a move that would reduce the deficit but would not prevent the president from seeking the cash.
Other trims
Spratt also rejected Obama's proposal to extend a tax break for businesses that lose money. And he trimmed $7 billion from a funding request for other government agencies, with the bulk of the reduction targeting international programs.
The House proposal would make bigger changes in future years, slicing another $60 billion from Obama's request for nondefense programs and rejecting the president's proposal to permanently exempt millions of middle-class families from the expensive alternative minimum tax.
Like the Senate, the House also scrapped Obama's plan to extend an $800 tax cut for working families that was temporarily enacted in the economic stimulus package.
The House and Senate budget committees expect to vote on their budget plans today and send them to their respective chambers for approval next week. Differences between the two chambers would then have to be resolved in a conference committee after the Easter break.
Obama would not have to sign the resulting resolution, which would not have the force of law. But it would set guidelines for lawmakers as they craft spending bills and draft legislation to implement Obama's policies.
Also Wednesday, Obama endorsed a fellow Democrat in a competitive special congressional election and was the main draw at two Democratic National Committee fundraisers.
"Sign up and pitch in to elect Scott Murphy to Congress," the president implored in an early morning e-mail to at least 50,000 people in New York's 20th Congressional District. Tying his agenda to the election's outcome, he added that electing Murphy would "make a big impact on my efforts to bring about a lasting economic recovery."
By evening, Obama headlined two fundraisers in Washington expected to bring in an estimated $3 million.
News Source : sfgate.com
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