Senate Democrats unveil budget plan
WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats unveiled a spending blueprint Tuesday that envisions a massive expansion of the nation’s health insurance program for children, as well as billions of additional dollars for other domestic priorities such as public education, veterans health care and local police.
Despite the additional spending, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said the Democratic budget proposal would virtually erase the federal deficit within four years without raising taxes and produce a surplus of $132 billion by 2012.
Under that scenario, Conrad said, Congress could extend President Bush’s signature tax cuts past their 2010 expiration date and halt the expansion of the alternative minimum tax, but only if sufficient revenues were raised elsewhere to cover the cost of about $800 billion over five years.
“We believe some of the tax cuts will be extended. Perhaps all of them will be,” Conrad said during a late-afternoon briefing for reporters at his Capitol Hill office. “You can extend any or all of them, if you pay for them.”
Conrad was vague on details of how that might be accomplished. Possible sources for the extra cash, he said, include improving taxpayer compliance, eliminating offshore tax havens and conducting a top-to-bottom overhaul of the nation’s tax system.
The briefing Tuesday, billed as a preview of a budget document that is to be released today to the Senate Budget Committee, marks the beginning of a months-long attempt by the new Democratic majority to craft an alternative to Bush’s spending plan for the budget year that begins in October.
It also marks another step to restore discipline to the congressional budget process, which has faltered badly over the past decade.
Last year, the Republican-controlled Congress failed to agree on an overall spending plan and adjourned without voting on 11 of 13 bills that fund most of the federal government.
Democrats vowed to change that and already have adopted rules requiring that new spending or tax cuts be offset by budget cuts or tax increases.