Washington — Republicans won Congress' first skirmish over President Bush's fiscal priorities Wednesday, pushing a $1.94 trillion budget for 2002 through the House Budget Committee that mirrors his calls for a big tax cut and restrained spending.
By a party-line 23-19 vote after a 12-hour meeting, the panel approved the blueprint, the heart of which is Bush's proposed 10-year, $1.6 trillion tax cut. It also uses $2.3 trillion for debt reduction, proposes more money for schools and veterans, and sets aside $153 billion in Medicare surpluses to start a prescription drug benefit and otherwise reshape the huge health insurance program for the elderly.
"We have a document here that does secure America's future," said the committee's chairman, Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa.
Democrats said the tax cut was so huge that it would soak up money needed for bolstering education, keeping Social Security and Medicare solvent and further reducing the national debt. They prefer a $750 billion tax reduction.
Combined with what they called "blue sky," dubious federal surplus projections, Democrats said the GOP budget would erode Medicare's trust fund and even threatened to revive annual federal deficits. "We doggone don't want to see us backslide into the hole we just dug out of," said Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, the committee's top Democrat, referring to four decades of budget deficits that ended in 1998.
In a series of party-line votes, Republicans shot down a parade of amendments Democrats had designed to contrast their priorities with the GOP's.
Among them were proposals to increase funds for education and prescription drugs and to shift money from the tax cut to Social Security and Medicare solvency and debt reduction.
Passage of the GOP budget was all but certain next week in the full House, where Republicans have a slim but united majority. The spending plan faces a more suspenseful journey in the Senate, where votes were planned for early April. That chamber is divided 50-50 between the two parties.
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