Congress budget outlines close to Obama plan

WASHINGTON - In a springtime show of unity, congressional Democrats unveiled budget blueprints Wednesday that embrace President Barack Obama's key priorities and point the way for major legislation this year on health care, energy and education.

Even so, both the House and Senate versions lack specifics for any of the administration's signature proposals. And Democrats decided to cut spending — and exploding deficits — below levels envisioned in the plan Obama presented less than a month ago.

Administration officials and congressional leaders said any differences were modest.

"This budget will protect President Obama's priorities — education, energy, health care, middle class tax relief and cut the deficit in half," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after the chief executive met privately in the Capitol with rank-and-file Democrats.

Earlier, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag told reporters the congressional budgets "may not be identical twins to what the president submitted, but they are certainly brothers that look an awful lot alike."

Less money for future tax cuts
Neither house included the $250 billion that the administration seeks for any future financial industry bailout. Additionally, Senate Democrats assume in their version that Obama's middle class tax cuts will expire after 2010, and the House blueprint allocates $200 billion less to tax cuts over five years than the president.

But none of that means the tax cuts can't be kept in place in 2011 and beyond, only that lawmakers would have to find offsetting revenue to pay for them, said Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

While the Senate version is supportive of most of the president's programs, it stops well short of endorsing the administration's tactics for enacting them into law. For example, the Senate budget supports the broad idea of a health care reserve fund, but it doesn't make assumptions about how to pay for it, or even how much of it should be paid for, NBC's Ken Strickland reported.

"We didn't exclude or include. What we did was leave open to the committees of jurisdiction maximum flexibility to make these judgments," Conrad said.

The House and Senate plans both call for spending $3.6 trillion in the year that begins Oct. 1, according to the Congressional Budget Office, compared with $3.7 trillion for Obama's plan.

The House plan foresees a deficit of $1.2 trillion for 2010 but would cut that to $598 billion after five years. The comparable Senate estimates are $1.2 trillion in 2010 and $508 billion in 2014.

Obama's budget would leave a deficit of $1.4 trillion in five years' time, according to congressional estimates, a level that is viewed by numerous experts as unacceptable over time if the economy is to recover and remain healthy.

Greeted with criticism
Given the strong Democratic congressional majorities in both houses, there is little or no doubt the spending blueprints can clear both houses by the end of next month. But Republicans greeted them with criticism nonetheless.

In the House, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Democrats were advancing "the president's high-cost, big-government agenda in camouflage. ... Instead of simply righting the ship, this budget steers it in a radically different direction straight into the tidal wave of spending and debt that is already building."

Ryan, who is the senior Republican on the House Budget Committee, and GOP colleagues are expected to unveil an alternative on Thursday. No similar effort is expected in the Senate.

While the budget outlines are non-binding blueprints spelling out the parameters of implementing subsequent legislation, those written assumptions give Congress clear guidance on how to move forward on things like spending, taxes, and even policy, NBC's Strickland reported.

But because Conrad did not make concrete recommendations about cost, it could be argued that he's rejecting the president's budget, Strickland said. On the other side of the argument, budget Democrats argue their budget does not prohibit Congress from following through on the president's plans.

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