Budget push divides GOP moderates, conservatives

WASHINGTON – Republican hopes of pushing a $2.4 trillion budget through Congress have all but vanished, an election-year embarrassment forced by an angry rift between GOP moderates and conservatives over tax cuts.

Though Republicans control the House and Senate, they almost certainly will fail to complete one of Congress’ most basic tasks, raising questions about the GOP’s ability to manage its narrow majorities.

Without a budget, Congress can still pass spending bills to keep agencies functioning – and tax cuts, too. But Republicans lose the procedural advantages that make it easier to cut taxes, raise the federal borrowing limit and keep spending bills’ costs from swelling.

“This is a battle within the Republican Party about whether deficit reduction or smaller government should be the dominant ideology,” said Brian Riedl, budget analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation. Conservatives say cutting taxes will force lawmakers to make government smaller.

“Because the Republican Party is not united on that issue, there are going to be breakdowns,” he said.

With war, terrorism and the economy stealing the headlines, few voters are likely to notice whether lawmakers finish a blueprint of their tax and spending goals for the federal budget year that starts Oct. 1.

But it was an emotional fight on Capitol Hill. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., accused moderate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., of not understanding sacrifice during wartime, prompting McCain – a former Vietnam prisoner of war – to question his party’s devotion to reducing deficits.

GOP leaders won’t definitively call the budget dead, though most lawmakers rate the chances for passing one this year as slim to none. In tacit acknowledgment, both chambers have begun writing the 13 annual spending bills for next year – a job that normally awaits completion of a budget.

“It’s on life support at this point,” said Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Senate GOP leader. “They’re trying. I don’t see any avenues, but Don’s come up with avenues before when I didn’t see any.”

“Don” is Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., who wanted to cap his 24-year congressional career with a budget in place when he retires in January. Nickles has met repeatedly with warring GOP factions and party leaders – so far for naught.

“I had some great ideas at 3:30 this morning” about resolving the dispute, he said recently. “I just about convinced myself, but I haven’t been able to convince anybody else so far.”

Nickles has told colleagues he is “out of options” for resolving the dispute, said one lawmaker speaking on condition of anonymity.

Underscoring the political potential a budget stalemate can offer, Santorum and other Republicans jumped on the last one in 2002. They brought a pack of bloodhounds to a news conference where they blamed that year’s Democratic-led Senate for the impasse and coaxed the dogs to “find the budget, boys.”

With deficits soaring to record levels, this year’s snarl occurred when McCain and three other moderate GOP senators demanded a requirement that any future tax cuts be paid for with spending cuts or tax increases. Joining him were Sens. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., plus Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both R-Maine.

Conservatives just as adamantly opposed any mechanism that could stifle the tax reductions they and President Bush cherish.

“We’ve probably reached the end of the line,” said Snowe.

This would be the third time in the past seven years – the second when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate – that a dispute has derailed a final budget.