Senate Democrats Propose Budget

Plan Focuses on Domestic Areas, Cuts Back War Funding

Senate Democrats unveiled a budget plan yesterday that would inject billions of additional dollars into such domestic priorities as education, energy and transportation, while providing $35 billion for a second round of government spending aimed at stimulating a weak economy.

The spending would push the federal deficit to more than $350 billion in fiscal 2009, but Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said the blueprint would erase the deficit within four years, producing a $160 billion surplus in 2013.

To get there, however, Democrats assume all of President Bush's first-term tax cuts would expire on schedule in 2010, bringing in billions in revenue. But if the most popular tax measures were extended, as the two Democratic presidential candidates have promised, the surplus would all but evaporate, Conrad said.

The Democratic budget also would omit several costly items, including tens of billions of dollars to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the budget proposed last month by the White House, the Democratic blueprint includes just $70 billion for the fighting in 2009 and nothing thereafter.

Whether that figure is credible "depends a lot on what kind of administration you get next," Conrad told reporters during a late afternoon briefing in his Capitol Hill office. If a Democrat takes the White House, he said, the number is "much closer to being realistic."

The briefing was billed as a preview of a budget document that is to be released this afternoon to the Senate Budget Committee. House budget leaders are scheduled to unveil their version earlier in the day, marking the beginning of a months-long attempt by the Democratic majority to craft an alternative to Bush's spending plan for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.

Last year, the process devolved into a protracted battle between the White House and Congress over domestic spending, and both sides are bracing for a bruising second round. Bush has repeatedly threatened to veto any spending bill that exceeds his request; on Monday, Bush's budget director, former Iowa congressman Jim Nussle, sent a letter to Democratic budget leaders to "reiterate that appropriations bills that exceed the president's reasonable and responsible spending levels will be met with a veto."

Conrad dismissed those threats, noting that Democrats are calling for only $18 billion more for federal programs than the president has proposed, a difference of about 1 percent. If Bush wants to be "relevant" during his final year in office, he will cooperate, Conrad said. Otherwise, "clearly, Congress could just wait him out."

Among the Democrats' proposals Conrad outlined:

¿ $35 billion for a second economic stimulus package that would come on top of the $168 billion bill signed by Bush last month. The new measure could pump more money into unemployment benefits, food stamps or heating assistance for low-income families. Conrad noted that Democrats have yet to decide whether a second stimulus bill is necessary.

¿ $13.4 billion in energy tax cuts and $3.5 billion in new funding for energy programs, the biggest increase in 30 years.

¿ $13 billion in education tax cuts, and an additional $5.7 billion over Bush's request for other education programs.

¿ $3.9 billion over Bush's request for transportation programs.

The Democratic plan meets the president's request for the Defense Department and for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which would together total $2.9 trillion over the next five years.