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April 18, 2012 – 11:04 p.m.

GOP Senators to Push Own Budgets

By Kerry Young and Niels Lesniewski, CQ Staff

Senate Republicans will try to bring budget resolutions to the floor even after a “phantom markup” of a proposed Democratic plan produced only partisan invective without any votes.

“I intend to take my alternative budget to the Senate floor, and at least hopefully have a debate then,” Patrick J. Toomey, R-Pa., said at a Budget Committee meeting Wednesday that pushed to center stage the political maneuvering in the Senate over spending plans.

Toomey and other Republicans are hoping for a repeat of last year, when the Senate voted on his fiscal 2012 budget plan and House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan’s resolution for that year. It’s unlikely now, however, that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will allow such votes this year. Reid has insisted he will not bring a budget resolution to the floor, and a vote on any budget plan could underscore the fact that Democrats did not advance their own blueprint.

Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee made that point repeatedly before and during the unconventional markup Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., staged Wednesday on his own long-term deficit reduction plan, one modeled largely on the proposal put forward by the 2010 Simpson-Bowles presidential commission. With Democratic leadership wary of a series of politically tough votes in an election year, Conrad introduced his measure but did not take votes or allow amendments.

Instead, Conrad said, he would like his plan to be part of the difficult negotiations on spending and taxes expected to take place after the November elections.

“Many have suggested we will not be able to reach conclusions until after the election,” Conrad said. “I wish that weren’t the case, but it probably is.”

Several Republicans and Democrats on the committee joined Conrad in calling for at least a deep examination of spending and tax plans in the months before Election Day. Mark Warner, D-Va., said that the post-election session should not be a repeat of the rushed scramble that went into drafting the August debt limit law (PL 112-25), which he considers an “embarrassment.”

But for Republicans, the meeting also provided a forum to criticize Reid and the Obama administration while heaping praise on Conrad for holding the meeting and saying Reid had stymied his attempt to offer a budget.

“His leadership lowered the boom,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters before the meeting. “Now what we’re going to have is a dog and pony show without a dog and pony. This is a charade.”

He waved off questions, saying, “We have to go to our phantom markup.”

When the meeting ended, the GOP members surrounded Conrad and congratulated him, shaking his hand and patting him on the back.

Republicans face tough challenges getting a vote on a budget resolution as the minority party in the Senate. Still, they will seek to take advantage of the special status that budget resolutions enjoy in the chamber.

In theory, any senator who gains control of the floor can make a filibuster-proof motion to proceed to any budget resolution pending on the Senate calendar. That’s because all pending budget resolutions are automatically discharged if the Senate Budget Committee does not complete a markup of its own blueprint by April 1.

GOP Senators to Push Own Budgets

By longstanding custom, however, the Senate majority leader sets the chamber’s agenda each day, allowing Reid a chance to thwart any GOP efforts to bring up a budget resolution. If one should somehow get by Reid, Democrats could seek to muster the votes to turn it back. Otherwise, consideration of a budget resolution may trigger what is known as a vote-a-rama, where dozens of amendments are allowed thanks to special rules governing consideration of budget resolutions. Democrat Mark Begich of Alaska on Wednesday called the prospect of a vote-a-rama a “joke” and a “waste of time.”

Political Calculations

The prospect for Senate votes on budget plans in coming months may depend on how strongly Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wants to get spending plans to the floor and whether he can get Reid to allow them.

That would leave Reid with a political calculation that will come as the presidential campaigns in this election year are increasingly focused on sharp differences on taxes and spending priorities. Democrats may believe they can gain some political edge by publicly airing debate on GOP spending plans that would push deep cuts in spending without raising revenue. Toomey, for example, is seeking to roll back non-defense discretionary spending — or most of the federal government’s operating expenses, outside of the Pentagon’s costs — to fiscal 2006 levels.

McConnell has said he will find a way to bring budget plans to the floor, telling reporters in February, “We will, of course, at some point have votes on budgets. . . . I think the Senate ought to be following the law and attempting to pass a budget, and we’ll have those votes in one way or another as the year moves along.”

The Senate in May 2011 rejected, 42-55, a motion to proceed to Toomey’s fiscal 2012 budget plan. Three fellow Republicans — Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts and Maine’s Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins — joined Democrats in voting against Toomey.

Toomey said his alternative budget plan (S Con Res 37) would balance the budget within eight years. It would lower marginal tax rates by 20 percent, index the alternative minimum tax for inflation and lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.

Toomey’s budget would include provisions of the plan (H Con Res 112) written by Ryan, R-Wis., which the House adopted last month, including overhauling Medicare and repealing the health care overhaul (PL 111-148, 111-152). It would convert the federal share of Medicaid into block grants to states, with spending frozen through 2017.

Conrad’s proposal is based on the framework put forward by the Simpson-Bowles Commission, led by Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, and Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, a former Republican senator. Conrad was a member of that commission.

His plan includes an overhaul of the tax code while raising revenue, as well as additional changes to entitlement programs.

On taxes, the plan would consolidate six tax brackets into three set at 12, 22 and 28 percent. It would set the corporate tax rate at 28 percent and repeal the alternative minimum tax.

The proposal would overhaul Medicare and Social Security and cut certain agricultural subsidies. It also would make changes to military and civil retirement systems.

Paul M. Krawzak and Emily Holden contributed to this story.

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