Bush Wants GOP's Budget Backing

President Bush tried coaxing the Senate Thursday to pass a compromise $2.4 trillion budget for next year, hoping to end a rebellion by moderate Republicans that has cast the measure's prospects into doubt.

During a private meeting with GOP lawmakers at the Capitol and in a written statement the White House issued afterward, the president praised the fiscal blueprint and urged the Senate to approve it. The House used a mostly party-line 216-213 vote on Wednesday to pass the measure.

The budget is a modest one-year plan shorn of any long-range policies on deficit-reduction or job creation to minimize controversy and win votes. But it has weaker restrictions on future tax cuts than moderate GOP senators want, and none of them have shown signs of changing their minds after weeks of lobbying.

In his statement, Mr. Bush said the budget "meets our nation's highest priorities of winning the war on terror, protecting the homeland, and helping our economy continue to create new jobs."

He added, "I urge the Senate to follow the House's lead and pass this budget so that we can continue making progress on our shared agenda of building a safer, stronger and better America."

In a morning meeting with Republicans in a Capitol basement meeting room, Mr. Bush said he wanted the budget to be passed, participants said.

Seemingly short of the votes they need, Senate Republican leaders said they had not decided whether to begin debating the measure.

"We're working to try to get the votes," said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

Many House moderates heeded their GOP leaders appeal for support on the spending measure. But four of their Senate colleagues — plus moderate Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska — were not as ready to accommodate.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on Wednesday became the last of the group to say she would oppose the budget, leaving GOP leaders two votes shy, at least for now, of what they need for approval. The moderates said record federal deficits mean tax cuts should be constrained.

A failure by the GOP-run Congress to complete a budget would be an election-year embarrassment for the party, whose leaders pledged to pass a spending plan to highlight their ability to govern. It is also a slap at Mr. Bush, who has opposed the tax-cut curbs GOP moderates and Democrats want.

Without a budget, it would be harder for Congress to cut taxes and raise the government's borrowing limit later this year.

The budget is a guide for future tax and spending bills. The compromise version, reached in House-Senate negotiations, would pave the way for more modest tax cuts than what Mr. Bush proposed.

It would impose constraints on tax cuts for one year, although exempting a single-year $27.5 billion tax bill Congress is expected to pass this year. That measure keeps the lowest 10 percent tax bracket, the $1,000 per child tax credit and breaks for two-income married couples from getting smaller, as scheduled under current law.

Mr. Bush proposed a more ambitious tax cutting agenda — nearly $1.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, mostly by making recent tax reductions permanent.

The budget also claims to leave next year's deficit at $367 billion — just below last year's $375 billion record, and $4 billion more than what forecasters expect without the budget's proposed policies. The measure also would bestow big boosts on defense and anti-terrorism programs, with only slight increases for other domestic programs.

In March, Democrats and moderate Republicans forced into the original Senate version a requirement that tax cuts and expanded benefits be paid for with either spending cuts or tax increases for five years.

That passed the Senate. The House version had no such restrictions.

Mr. Bush also proposed halving this year's huge deficit — expected to exceed $400 billion — in five years. The compromise congressional plan achieves that goal, but partly because its tax cuts would last only for one year and it lacks a long-range defense buildup.