Budget Deal Highlights Gop Rift

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 14) -- The Republican balanced budget plan was supposed to focus attention on the spending- and tax-cutting differences between the Democrats and Republicans. Despite the bill's passage, it ended up showcasing the friction between House conservatives and Senate GOP moderates.

Partisan ties held firm in the Senate, which voted 53-46 Thursday to adopt the budget detailing the Republican's plan to accumulate a $5 billion surplus by 2002.

The proposal had a more difficult route in the House where it passed 216-211 Wednesday, requiring a lot of last-minute political maneuvering.

Nineteen conservatives withheld support of the plan because it allowed a temporary deficit increase. Four were convinced to back the proposal.

At issue for the conservative House members was a $4 billion annually approved addition to domestic spending that was added after earlier versions of the House and Senate budget had been approved separately last month.

The extra money worsened prospects of a projected temporary deficit increase.

The bill, which cuts taxes and spending more sharply than President Bill Clinton wanted but less than conservatives hoped for, will squeeze $158 billion savings from Medicare and more than $140 billion in Medicaid and welfare. It also provides $122 billion in new child-related tax cuts.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) noted the legislation was not unanimously well-received, but shows new developments in government. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) argued the bill is too extreme and provides tax cuts for those who do not need them.

The budget does not require Clinton's signature, since it serves only as a guideline for Congress to use as it sends tax and spending bills to the White House between now and the October 1 start of fiscal 1997.

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