House Approves $1.8-Trillion GOP Budget Plan

House Republicans succeeded Thursday in winning speedy approval of a GOP-crafted budget blueprint for fiscal 2001, but the measure faces a bumpy road in the Senate, where conservatives are trying to block it as too spendthrift.

Passage came on a party-line vote of 211 to 207.

The $1.8-trillion measure calls for a minimum of $150 billion in tax cuts over five years, a large increase in defense spending and a modest increase in outlays for domestic programs--though less than would be needed to keep pace with inflation.

President Clinton has already assailed the GOP plan, asserting that it would cut domestic spending too deeply and imperil the budget surplus. White House Budget Director Jack Lew reinforced that view in comments Thursday.

Quick approval of the budget resolution--which sets a framework that will be filled in by specific spending and tax bills later in the year--has been a major priority of House GOP leaders. They hope to avoid a replay of last year’s end-of-session budget wrangling with Democrats and the White House and adjourn early so lawmakers can go home and campaign for reelection.

But the timetable may be upset in the Senate, where the Budget Committee is badly split over how much to allot for domestic spending programs. Senate GOP leaders have warned that they may bypass the panel and bring the measure directly to the floor if the committee has not acted by April 1.

The expected House vote on the GOP budget resolution came after lawmakers defeated five competing spending proposals that would have altered the Republican recommendations for how much money to allocate for tax reductions, defense spending and domestic programs.

Passage of a budget resolution by the House and Senate is the first step in a complex budgeting process that Congress carries out each year. Although the plan does not require the president’s signature, the two houses are obliged to stay within whatever budget they set.

Before Thursday’s debate, House GOP leaders reached a last-minute deal with a small group of conservatives who had been preparing to oppose the budget plan on grounds that it permits too much spending and abandons the push to shrink the size of government.

To mollify budget hawks, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) agreed to support a conservative amendment to an upcoming supplemental appropriations bill that would earmark an extra $4 billion in available money for reducing the national debt.

Democrats followed Clinton’s lead in solidly opposing the GOP spending plan. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said that the proposed GOP tax cut “sacrifices fiscal responsibility on the altar of massive tax cuts.”

The prospect of a rebellion by GOP conservatives--along with unity among Democrats--had threatened to scuttle the budget plan in the House, where Republicans have only a razor-thin majority. The deal between the two GOP factions did not come until late Wednesday.

The House GOP spending plan calls for $1.8 trillion in overall spending, most of it for mandatory entitlement programs. The budget includes $596.5 billion for other operating expenses--$306.3 billion for defense and $289.2 billion for domestic programs--and at least $150 billion in tax cuts over five years.

By comparison, Clinton has proposed $625 billion for operating expenses--$305.3 billion for defense and $308 billion for domestic programs--and $66.7 billion for tax cuts over five years. Clinton also has proposed providing prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients.

Republicans have been trying to walk a fine line on the tax issue. Although the $150-billion tax cut they have proposed is decidedly larger than what Clinton is seeking, it is conspicuously less than the $483 billion in tax cuts over five years that their presumed presidential nominee, George W. Bush, has proposed.

If the budget measure is delayed significantly in the Senate, it also could sidetrack congressional action on a $9-billion supplemental appropriations bill that is needed to finance continued anti-drug efforts in Colombia and peacekeeping expenses in Kosovo.

House leaders had already postponed a floor vote on this money bill for a week, pending floor action on the budget resolution.

The $596.5 billion that the GOP budget would allot for defense and domestic programs represents a modest reduction in the ability of the government to continue last year’s services intact. Congressional budget experts said that it would take $607 billion to offset the impact of inflation.

The alternative budget plans defeated Thursday were proposed by various GOP and Democratic factions, ranging from the liberal-oriented Congressional Black Caucus to the right-leaning Conservative Action Team.

Conservatives would have slashed the GOP’s $596.5 billion in operating expenses to $582.7 billion, at the same time boosting defense spending to $309 billion and calling for $153 billion more than the leadership sought in tax-reduction authority.

By contrast, the Black Caucus’ substitute would have slashed defense spending by $51.3 billion from the Republican proposal and provided $88.8 billion more in spending for education and other social programs.

The GOP budget includes a $1-billion increase for space science--the broad category that contains funding for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. The increase had been pegged at $500 million, but House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-San Dimas) boosted the total.