Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991 TAG: 9104180319
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The Republican Party split on the merits of the president's budget, with 74 Republicans voting against it and 89 supporting it. No Democrats voted for the Bush budget; 260 Democrats voted against it, as did the one independent in the House, Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
All Democrats in Virginia's House delegation voted for the budget measure, and all Virginia Republicans voted against it.
On the surface, the vote was a defeat for Bush and his budget director, Richard Darman, who had assured the president the administration's request was politically realistic and acceptable on Capitol Hill.
Republicans who supported the president's request asserted that the budget framework adopted in the House Wednesday was not much different from the Bush proposal. Democrats insisted there were substantial differences, which would be appreciated by millions of poor people, veterans and Medicare beneficiaries.
The House budget blueprint, like one being developed in the Senate, would provide more money than Bush requested for the Head Start program for preschool children, the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children, veterans' benefits and health care for people with AIDS.
The House rejected Bush's proposal for substantial cuts in projected payments to hospitals under Medicare, the federal health insurance program for 33 million elderly and disabled people. Indeed, the House budget plan calls for no tax cut, no tax increase and no changes in federal benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and guaranteed student loans.
The House spending plan provides smaller increases than Bush sought for space exploration and research.
The measure adopted Wednesday, known as a budget resolution, was developed mainly by House Democrats and was approved on the floor by a vote of 261 to 163. It prescribes the level of government spending and revenues in each of the next five fiscal years.
The next step is for the Senate to vote on its own budget resolution. After the two chambers work out their differences and agree on a compromise, the committees of Congress will draft legislation, including appropriations bills, to carry out the policies embodied in the budget blueprint.
The measure adopted by the House carries out the bipartisan budget agreement negotiated with much difficulty last year. That agreement shifted the focus of congressional debate from the total amount of federal spending to the question of how the money should be spent, and House Democrats tried Wednesday to show that their domestic priorities were different from Bush's.
Rep. Leon E. Panetta, the California Democrat who chairs the Budget Committee, said Bush's latest request was "the most honest budget submitted by a president in the last 10 years." But he said: "The great failure of the 1992 budget proposed by Mr. Bush is that he failed to seize the opportunity to break with the past."
by CNB