The House and Senate budget committees yesterday began laying the groundwork for federal spending for the next five years, although any budget resolution resulting from the proposals in both chambers would not set legislative specifics and would only be intended as a blueprint.
Both committees began considering amendments to their proposed resolutions yesterday afternoon, with a large portion of each committee's meeting comprised of partisan finger-pointing over the growing deficit.
The budget reconciliation process that may be employed is used to enact legislation to fine tune revenue and spending levels through legislation that cannot be filibustered in the Senate, according to the House Rules Committee.
Once both chambers pass reconciliation bills, their differences must be resolved in a conference and the final product, which typically is to be reached before June 15, is sent back to the House and Senate for approval before it can be signed into law by the president.
Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., unveiled a budget outline that modified President Obama's budget proposal in response to updated, increased deficit projections made by the Congressional Budget Office.
The proposal by House Budget Committee chairman Rep. John M. Spratt Jr., D-S.C., set the discretionary budget authority at $1.12 trillion for fiscal 2010, about $250 billion less than fiscal 2009. The total budget authority for fiscal 2010 through 2014 would be $6.1 trillion, with outlays of $6.63 trillion during that time, under that proposal.
Of that, transportation would be given a discretionary budget of $31.4 billion in fiscal 2010 and $162 billion over the five years through fiscal 2014.
It also would allow the budget chairman to revise the transportation spending limit to accommodate a forthcoming surface transportation bill by providing new contract authority - separate from discretionary spending - to keep grant money flowing to states from fiscal 2009 through fiscal 2015.
In addition, the Senate and House committee chairmen's proposals would provide reserve funds to allow for Pell grant increases and health care reform, and would increase funds for renewable energy. Spratt's proposal would provide $39 billion in funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency and $20 billion in tax incentives for energy investment.
Conrad's proposal would provide alternative minimum tax and other tax relief to the middle class, funding part of the tax revenue losses by closing tax loopholes. Wealthy taxpayers would not be affected by the proposed budget until 2011, according to the committee's Democrats.
The Senate Budget Committee's package would cut the national deficit in half by 2012 and by two-thirds by 2014, and would improve the estimated $12.1 trillion gross national debt as well, the committee's Democrats claim, even though it would represent a 5.3% increase over the enacted 2009 budget resolution.
