In Congress, Efforts to Structure Tight Budget Caught in Tug of War

The effort in Congress to put together a belt-tightening budget was dealt several setbacks Tuesday as Senate moderates and House conservatives tugged the budget in opposite directions.

Centrist senators of both parties gained support for attaching to the Senate’s version of the 2006 budget a provision known as paygo, short for “pay as you go.” The amendment would mandate that legislation to raise spending or cut taxes would need the support of 60 of the 100 senators unless it was accompanied by enough spending cuts or tax increases to offset its effect on the deficit.

A similar provision adopted by the Senate last year led to a stalemate with the House and no budget at all.

Meanwhile, the conservative Republican Study Committee complained that the House version of the budget did not cut spending enough and demanded a tougher procedure to restrain spending.

Failure to pass a budget, which sets spending and revenue targets for bills that Congress will consider throughout the coming year, would be a serious blow to deficit control. Budgets approved last week by the two budget committees would require other Senate and House committees to prepare legislation cutting $32 billion over five years in the Senate version and $69 billion over the same period in the House version.

Without a budget, committees would be less likely to send spending-cut legislation to the House and Senate floors.

Assessing the budget’s prospects, House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) said: “This is going to be very difficult.”

“The real challenge for us is in the Senate,” Nussle said. “Last year, they were at least trying. This year, I think they almost gave up before they started the process.”

The chief budget hurdle is the paygo provision, which the Senate Budget Committee rejected last week by a party-line vote of 12 Republicans opposed and 10 Democrats in favor. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) plan to offer a paygo amendment on the Senate floor this week.

Members of the Senate Centrist Coalition met Tuesday to pledge support for paygo and to urge other senators to join them. They said all 44 Democratic senators and one independent who typically votes with the Democrats would support paygo, as would five Republicans: Voinovich, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, and John McCain of Arizona.

That would give paygo 50 votes, one short of a majority.

“This amendment is about putting the teeth into fiscal responsibility, about putting our money where our mouth is and about taking our responsibility to lessen the load on future generations seriously,” Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), who with Snowe heads the Centrist Coalition, said after the meeting.

Nussle and his counterpart on the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), have said they object to paygo because it would come down harder on tax cuts than on spending increases. The strictures of paygo would be brought to bear against all tax-cut legislation, but programs that guarantee benefits to qualified individuals, such as Social Security, have automatic increases built in -- so no legislation is needed to authorize the larger spending. And because there is no legislation for those increases, their argument goes, paygo would not apply.

In the House, the conservative Republican Study Committee demanded stronger tools to enforce the budget resolution’s ceiling on spending in the 14 annual appropriations bills.

“We want a budget, not a mirage,” said Study Committee Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana. “I will not vote for the budget if we cannot enforce the budget.”

Nearly 100 of the House’s 435 members are members of the committee, and they could swing the balance if they voted on the same side as the House’s 202 Democrats.

The Senate continued voting on amendments to its budget Tuesday, and an amendment to put the House on record as opposing deep benefit cuts and massive borrowing to guarantee the solvency of Social Security was defeated on a 50-50 vote.

“Congress should reject any Social Security plan that requires deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt,” said the amendment by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). The increases in debt referred to President Bush’s proposal to divert some Social Security payroll taxes to private retirement accounts and to borrow the money necessary to pay full benefits to retirees.

When the Senate resumes debate on the budget today, an amendment by Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.) to restore as much as $15 billion in cuts from the Medicaid program over five years is considered likely to pass.

The House also hopes to begin floor debate of its version of the budget.