The U.S. Senate is set to vote today on a pair of competing budget plans, though a top Republican warned that lawmakers remain a long way from settling their differences over spending cuts.
The chamber plans to vote on a $61 billion budget-cutting measure passed last month by the Republican-controlled House as well as on a Democratic alternative that would slice around one- tenth as much. Both are likely to fail, though the votes will show the strength of support for each measure.
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House’s third-ranking Republican, said yesterday that his colleagues are preparing another stopgap budget measure that would buy lawmakers as much as an additional month to reach an agreement on spending levels for the rest of the government’s 2011 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. A temporary measure funding federal agencies expires March 18.
Lawmakers’ differences grew wider yesterday when Senate Democrats said they wanted to find savings elsewhere in the government’s budget, not just in the non-security discretionary portion targeted by the House. Additional delay boosts the odds that the budget debate will merge with an expected battle over raising the federal debt limit, which the Treasury Department said will be reached sometime between April 15 and May 31.
Democrats have been pressing for today’s votes in hopes of showing House Republican freshmen, who have pushed for big spending cuts, that their plan is not viable in the Senate.
“We want the American people to know that H.R. 1 is dead,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, referring to the House bill.
‘Send a Signal’
Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chamber’s third- ranking Republican, said the members of his caucus hoped to produce as many votes in favor of the House plan as possible “so we can send a signal that that’s where we want the final result to be, or as close to there as it can possibly be.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said he was prepared to force furloughs of government employees in order to reduce the deficit.
“The only entity in American that’s not sacrificing during this economic downturn is federal government workers,” McConnell told reporters yesterday. “We have largely insulated the federal government from this recession. And I don’t think that’s a good argument for not trying to get -- to begin to get our fiscal house in order.”
‘Wall Street Tax’
Senate Democrats said they have discussed several ideas for reducing deficits aside from cutting “discretionary” spending, including cutting mandatory programs such as farm subsidies and raising tax rates for those earning more than $1 million. Democrats are also considering ending tax breaks for oil and gas companies, a proposal President Barack Obama included in his budget, and imposing a “Wall Street tax” -- an assessment of about one-tenth of 1 percent per stock transaction, said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
“There is a growing understanding that revenue has got to be part of the discussion,” said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the chamber’s No. 3 Democrat, will call today for an “all of the above” strategy to reduce red ink, his office said.
Lawmakers are “still a ways from getting a long-term” agreement for the rest of the government’s fiscal year, McCarthy said at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. He said any stopgap measure would make additional cuts on top of the $4 billion included in the temporary funding bill signed into law last week.
Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, accused Obama of failing to lead in the budget debate.
“When it comes to an issue of significant national importance, the president must lead -- not the majority leader or the speaker, but the president,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“He must sit down with leaders of both parties and help hammer out a real bipartisan compromise,” Manchin said, and so far “the most powerful person in these negotiations -- our president -- has failed to lead.”
الرئيسية 
موضوع: Senate to Vote on Competing Spending Measures as Parties Remain Far Apart 
الأربعاء مارس 09, 2011 4:03 am
