Hill Democrats Critical Of Bush's Budget Plan

Administration officials dispatched to Capitol Hill to defend President Bush's budget received a frosty reception yesterday from congressional Democrats, who argued that the president's proposal to target health care, education and other Democratic priorities suggests a White House more interested in scoring political points than in genuine compromise.

The $2.9 trillion budget blueprint contains little to appeal to, but much to infuriate, the Democratic majority, Democrats said. In a series of hearings, they rattled off a list of their objections: More than $100 billion to be sliced from projected Medicare and Medicaid spending. Further restrictions on the federal food-stamp program. Insufficient cash to maintain health coverage for millions of children. And deep cuts proposed for a range of programs that help communities put police on the street and fund community projects.

When you combine the cutbacks with the large sums the White House is seeking to support the military, the war and tax cuts, "this is not a budget we can support," House Budget Committee Chairman John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) told reporters after his panel finished grilling White House budget director Rob Portman.

In the House Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) told Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson that he was particularly annoyed by the health-care cuts and yet another request from the White House to create private retirement accounts that would allow taxpayers to shift billions of dollars out of the Social Security trust fund.

The proposal went nowhere two years ago, when Republicans controlled Congress. Democrats have refused even to discuss changing Social Security unless Bush backs away from the plan. At a time when the president is trying to engage Democrats in a politically risky effort to restructure Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Rangel told Paulson, the budget represents a "missed opportunity."

"They're playing politics at a time that I'm trying to be bipartisan," Rangel said later. "I don't think that I can tell the president what to put on the table and not to put on the table. But I can tell him: Don't pick a . . . fight."

Paulson replied that "no one should be surprised that private accounts are in the budget," because they represent the president's preferred path for restructuring Social Security. But, he said, "everything is on the table" for discussion, and "the president has been very clear and very sincere" about that.

Despite what they consider unpalatable budget proposals, Rangel and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democrats remain hopeful that they can work with the administration to rein in spending on the three programs, which threaten to swamp the federal budget as the baby boom generation retires. "We all need a win," Rangel said.

Health care was also a major topic in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt endured more than 2 1/2 hours of questions from Democrats complaining that the budget request would hurt children and the elderly and shortchange funding for research into cancer and other diseases.

The lawmakers focused on Bush's proposal to increase funding for the state-federal Children's Health Insurance Program by $4.8 billion over the next five years -- too little, experts say, to continue covering the 4.4 million children enrolled in the program last year. Analysts have said the program, which costs about $5 billion a year, would require an increase of $12 billion to $15 billion to keep pace with current enrollment because of rising health-care costs.

Some Democrats want to use the 10-year-old program, which must be reauthorized this year, to extend coverage to some of the nation's 8.3 million uninsured children. Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), the committee's chairman, said Bush's budget "misses an historic opportunity" to do so.

"Seven out of 10 uninsured children qualify for either Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program but are not yet enrolled. Yet, the president instead makes cuts in the program, ensuring that we will not reach those children, and that more children and their parents will become uninsured," Dingell said.

Democrats also panned the president's proposals to stop enrolling childless adults in the program and to provide less federal matching money for enrolled children whose families earn more than the targeted cutoff of twice the poverty level, or $41,300 for a family of four.

Leavitt called the proposed funding "adequate" and said the program should not be used "as an engine to pull us toward a point where everyone is covered by the federal government."

While Leavitt is an old hand at budget hearings, the hostile audience was a new experience. Both he and Portman, a former congressman from Ohio who served on both the Budget Committee and Ways and Means, handled the long hours of contentious questions with calm assurance.

But Paulson, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs who joined the administration last summer, seemed less comfortable with the interrogation, which ranged over a wide array of topics, not all of them familiar.

In addition to attacks from Democrats, Paulson took fire from Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), who demanded to know why the administration had chosen to extend the federal unemployment surtax. (Paulson said he did not know and suggested that Weller talk to Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao.) And Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.) said that it was "not appropriate" for the White House to recommend cuts to the federal home-heating program at a time when the wind-chill factor back home was 40 degrees below zero. (Paulson thanked him for the question and changed the subject.)

"This is not like running Goldman Sachs," Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) joked.

Paulson smiled. "You can say that again," he said.