House Approves $3.5 Trillion Budget of Obama Initiatives

By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 3, 2009; A06

Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly embraced President Obama's ambitious and expensive agenda for the nation yesterday, endorsing a $3.5 trillion spending plan that sets the stage for the president to pursue his most far-reaching priorities.

On a party-line vote, the House approved a budget blueprint that would trim Obama's spending proposals for the fiscal year that begins in October and curtail his plans to cut taxes. The plan, however, would permit work to begin on the central goals of Obama's presidency: an expansion of health-care coverage for the uninsured, more money for college loans, and a cap-and-trade system to reduce gases that contribute to global warming.

Senate leaders predicted late yesterday that their version of the budget blueprint would win approval by midnight.

If so, the two measures would then move to a House-Senate conference committee, where the harder work of implementing Obama's initiatives would begin. While Democrats have sanctioned the president's vision for spending massive sums to transform huge sectors of the economy, they remain fiercely divided over the details.

There is no agreement, for example, on how to pay for an overhaul of the health-care system expected to add more than $1 trillion to the budget over the next decade, and there is no consensus on how to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars the government stands to collect by setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions and forcing industry to buy permits to pollute. Those issues will be decided in committees where lawmakers have already begun the tortuous work of penciling in the details of Obama's vision.

"Democrats in the House and, I think, the Senate are shoulder to shoulder with the president in trying to make the big decisions we need to make in this country," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). But, he said, "Hammering out the details will require everyone to roll up their sleeves."

Republicans blasted the spending plan as a reckless manifesto that would greatly expand the size of government and double the national debt within five years. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he and other opponents feared the consequences of a budget that "calls for a dramatic and potentially irreversible shift of our nation to the left in the areas of health care, education, and private enterprise."

Democrats rallied behind the president, however, arguing that their budget would rebuild an economy ruined by eight years of Republican rule. In the House, fiscal conservatives fell in line behind the plan, even though it would generate a deficit of more than $1.2 trillion next year and produce large annual deficits well into the future. The progressive caucus offered an alternative budget plan primarily to voice opposition to the war in Iraq, though many of its members also voted for Obama's budget.

"It's nice to support a president who's got a brain and a heart -- and uses them both," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), co-chair of the progressive caucus.

In the end, the House voted 233 to 196 to support the president's budget proposal, with only 20 Democrats voting no and no Republicans voting yes.

The biggest dispute between the two chambers is whether to use a powerful procedural shortcut that could allow Obama's health, education and energy initiatives to pass the often balky Senate with 51 votes rather than the usual 60, eliminating the need to win over any Republicans.

Encouraged by the administration, the House yesterday voted to include the procedure, known as reconciliation, in its budget plan to speed health care and education legislation. But Senate Republicans -- and some Senate Democrats -- argue that the maneuver would make bipartisan cooperation all but impossible on some of the most significant measures to come before the Senate in years.

The Senate, meanwhile, has roundly rejected reconciliation for Obama's cap-and-trade proposal, adopting an amendment to ban the maneuver by a vote of 67 to 31. The House budget does not include cap-and-trade in its reconciliation provisions. But neither fact has deterred cap-and-trade advocates, and administration officials support leaving the door open in the final budget blueprint when it emerges from conference committee for a final vote later this month.

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) called cap-and-trade "the most significant revenue-generating proposal of our time," and said it would be difficult to pass without reconciliation because Democrats would be forced to accommodate a handful of Republicans as they did during the debate over the president's economic stimulus package. Though winning use of the maneuver is unlikely, Cardin said, "a lot of us don't want to give up without a fight."

Other differences between the two chambers are comparatively minor. Both the House and Senate budget plans would authorize about $3.5 trillion in spending next year, about $100 billion less than Obama had requested. Much of that reduction would come from lawmakers' decision not to budget another $250 billion for the Treasury Department's $700 billion bailout of the nation's financial system. That move would not prevent Obama from requesting the funds, however.

Both chambers also trimmed Obama's request for government agencies, with the Senate cutting $15 billion and the House cutting about $7 billion. But both budget plans would fully fund Obama's request for defense spending and authorize the administration to spend $130 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan next year.

Both chambers have adopted Obama's plans to extend tax cuts for the middle class beyond their 2010 expiration date and to allow cuts for families making more than $250,000 a year to expire. But after congressional budget analysts forecast that Obama's plans would add $9.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, both chambers scaled back Obama's plan to protect millions of families from the alternative minimum tax and dropped his plan to extend his signature $800 tax credit for working families.

Like so many other big-ticket items, a decision about whether to revive the tax credit will be made in committee over the coming weeks.