Unified Democrats mirror Obama budget priorities

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-26 08:29

WASHINGTON -- In a springtime show of unity, congressional Democrats welcomed President Barack Obama to the Capitol Wednesday and unveiled budget blueprints that embrace his 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.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., left, speaks during a news conference about the budget on Capitol Hill in Washington Wednesday, March 25, 2009 as Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., listens. [Agencies]

"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."

Neither house included the $250 billion that the administration seeks for any future financial industry bailout. Additionally, Both House and Senate Democrats assume in their version that Obama's $400 tax credit for most workers will expire after 2010 and fail to permanently extend relief from the alternative minimum tax.

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.

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 $749 billion in five years' time, according to congressional estimates -- too high for his Democratic allies -- and would grow to unsustainable levels exceeding 5 percent of the economy by the end of the decade.

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.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who was briefly Obama's choice to become commerce secretary earlier in the year, said the president had laid out a "blueprint to move the government dramatically to the left ... hard left." The senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee added that Democrats were masking the true deficits left by their plans by leaving out the cost of legislation that is politically essential, such as funding to shelter doctors from payments they receive for serving Medicare patients.

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