Democrats Give Quick Thumbs Down on Budget
The Democrats finally have their chance to scrutinize President Bush's own "fuzzy math." For the first time in his presidency, Democrats will take the lead when Congress looks over Bush's budget request–a $2.9 trillion proposal unveiled today. It's heavy on defense, adamant about making tax cuts permanent, and sanguine about balancing the budget by 2012.
And it received a heavy dose of criticism.
"Filled with debt and deception," scolded Sen. Kent Conrad, head of the Senate's Budget Committee.
"More of the same," said Sen. Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia.
"Wrongheaded," declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One of the only compliments he received was that the budget request for the war in 2008 was released on the same day.
That's not terribly unusual on Budget Day in Washington, but as Congress gets down to deciding 2008 fiscal policy–starting bright and early Tuesday–the president can expect that tough workover to continue.
Some observers, in fact, say most of the president's request is dead on arrival with the newly empowered Democrats. The president is looking for $716.5 billion for the military through September 2008, the most amount of money since before Korea and Vietnam. (That request will get the most scrutiny of all.) Bush says his budget represents a 1 percent increase in domestic non-security spending, but that's comparing it to his own request the last go-around, which never made it through Congress. (Democrats are in the process of funding the government for the 2007 fiscal year at a level that could in some areas effectively negate Bush's 1 percent increase and instead freeze government spending levels.)
And then there was Bush's hidden reaffirmation of adding private accounts to Social Security. That proposal really is DOA, considering the high-stakes fight Democrats won in 2005 on the same plan, when they were in the minority, Bush riding high, and Social Security reform intended to be the legacy of the president's second term.
Despite all their strident words of opposition today, Democrats have their own tough balancing act. They've already supported pay-go rules–meaning any new spending they agree to must be offset by tax revenues. They have no desire to be labeled "tax and spend" liberals. They must give their progressive base some legislative and economically costly wins, while pleasing the deficit-hawk centrists. And most of all, they don't want to appear weak on defense; in fact, some Democrats have for several years supported increasing the size of the military, in effect standing on the president's right flank.
Robert Greenstein, head of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says that coming up with their own plan "will take a lot of internal struggle." Adds Robert Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that supports balanced budgets: "Once the smoke clears and the Democrats have to write their own budget resolution, they may find that they should look for a pulse in the budget rather than calling it dead."
Where those areas of compromise might lie is an open question. Robert Portman, director of Bush's Office of Management and Budget, and Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary, have been reaching out to Democrats on Capitol Hill since the election and are trying to build some support for the president. Bush proposed increasing the maximum Pell Grant award and cutting subsidies to companies that lend money to students. That, said Sen. Edward Kennedy, "shows how a Democratic Congress is changing the nation's priorities." Bixby says that although Democrats are dismissive of Bush's changes to Medicare – increasing premiums for higher income beneficiaries, changing how the government pays for some medical equipment – which the president says could curb spending by $66 billion over five years, it may still be an opening for some changes.
"I wouldn't expect the Democrats to jump up and embrace them," he says. "But it puts the issue on the table for negotiation."
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