House OKs Budget Plan, Rejects President’s Spending Package

The House buried President Bush’s new budget Wednesday and adopted instead a $1.46-trillion Democratic plan that avoids tax increases while allocating more spending for education, housing, veterans’ benefits and a variety of other social programs.

Bush’s proposal--which included a $25-billion reduction in Medicare outlays over five years and an $11-billion cut in capital gains taxes primarily for wealthy Americans--was crushed by a vote of 335 to 89. Eighty-eight Republicans backed the President, but 75 members of his own party deserted him on the roll call.

The plan, which sailed through the Democratic-controlled chamber, 261 to 163, conforms to last year’s budget summit agreement by adhering to ceilings on outlays for defense, international affairs and domestic programs. It was sent to the Senate, where a similar Democratic blueprint is now pending in committee.

Because of the deficit-reduction accord, however, the Bush budget and the opposition’s alternative were far more similar than they have been for years, with disputes over less than 1% of the overall total.

Under both plans, for example, defense spending would be capped at $295.3 billion and foreign aid would be limited to $18 billion.

Both held major domestic spending to $211 billion. However, Democrats switched $13 billion of Bush’s total, primarily by reducing space and science outlays to increase funds for student loans, health care and other social programs.

In one party-line vote, however, the House voted, 261 to 158, to raise education spending by $2.4 billion more over the next five years than the President proposed, underscoring the differences between the two approaches.

Although the figures in the budget resolution are not binding on the congressional appropriations committees that actually make spending decisions, they do provide guidelines for the House and Senate in debating the money bills.

Overall, Democrats were surprisingly complimentary about the President’s budget.

“It’s the most honest budget submitted by a President in the last 10 years,” said Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), chairman of the House Budget Committee. “It has discarded smoke and mirrors but he (Bush) failed fully to seize the opportunity to break with the past.”