Unified Democrats mirror Obama budget priorities

[ProSense]

Unified Democrats mirror Obama budget priorities

By DAVID ESPO and ANDREW TAYLOR

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.

"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."

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[WeDidIt]

1. They appear to be learning

And instead of taking a page from the GOP's book, they one-upped 'em.

They pushed a group of "conservative Dems" that after its formation went along in lock step with Obama's budget.

The brilliance demonstrated by the Dems astounds me.

Truly, it astounds me.

I'm flabbergasted.

Bravo.

[TheBigotBasher]

2. Not the same as this

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, said the base proposal he would present saved $608 billion over five years compared with the president’s plan.

The difference comes mainly from scaling back efforts to rein in a mandatory minimum income tax that is creeping up on the middle class, dropping $250 billion for a new round of bank bailouts, and increasing spending on nonmilitary federal programs by 7 percent rather than the 10 percent proposed by the president for a savings of $160 billion.

The Democrats’ budget does not provide for Mr. Obama’s signature middle-class tax cut, called Making Work Pay, of $400 for individuals earning $75,000 and $800 for couples with incomes up to $150,000 after 2010.

“We show what our numbers would accommodate, and they would not accommodate Making Work Pay,” said Mr. Conrad.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8291524

What gives?

[ProSense]

4. White House: Congress' Budget Blueprints Aren't Setback

White House: Congress' Budget Blueprints Aren't Setback

By Brian Beutler

The big budget news (always an eyeball grabber) is that Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) and his House counterpart John Spratt (D-SC) are taking machetes to Obama's proposal, released last month. The Washington Post reports that the two are poised to release budget blueprints that "cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Obama's spending request over the next five years."

But is there really any there, there? Short answer: not really. The blueprints, called resolutions, aren't binding on the work of congressional committees, which are still plowing ahead with their legislative agendas. And at the same time, many of Conrad's cuts are geared more toward hiding spending than calling for specific cuts. For instance, "Conrad...pressed some Bush-era budget maneuvers eliminated by Obama back into service: Instead of a 10-year budget that shows deficits steadily accumulating, for example, Conrad is proposing a five-year spending plan."

On a conference call with reporters this morning, Obama's budget director Peter Orszag held firmly to this line, calling the congressional resolutions siblings of the Obama proposal, and insisting that particular changes--like Conrad's move to leave Obama's health care proposal out of the resolution--don't really matter. "Whether the budget resolution included specific offsets or not is not particularly relevant," Orszag said. "The point is that the finance committee has been tasked with coming up with a deficit neutral health reform."

At last night's press conference, though, Obama himself sounded a somewhat different note, "Well, I've emphasized repeatedly what I expect out of this budget. I expect that there's serious efforts at health care reform and that we are driving down costs for families and businesses, and ultimately for the federal and state governments that are going to be broke if we continue on the current path. "

Much of this comes down to semantics, but this is yet another sign that Obama and Conrad are on different pages. Similarly, Orszag repeated his contention that the White House would prefer not to pass health care reform through the reconciliation process, but that the option's still on the table. Conrad is famously opposed to the idea.

[Jennicut]

7. Sen. Conrad, why fudge around the deficit projections? That is so Bush like

Obama already explained why we need the investments now and how to tackle the deficit later on down the line.

[Massacure]

6. Obama shouldn't set aside nother $250 billion for banks.

$350 billion over 5 years isn't much in the grand scheme of things. $70 billion dollars in a three trillion dollar a year budget won't make or break anything.

[firedupdem]

3. Very good...education, energy, health care, tax relief are still there.

Barbara Boxer said things were going well today too. I trust her to give the real story. Glad things aren't as the MSM is trying to frame them.

[Kdillard]

5. I shall wait to see but hopefully the Democrats are learning and will

stick together.