On April 28, the House approved, 214-211, the conference report for the FY2006 budget resolution (H. Con. Res. 95). The Senate approved the conference report, 52-47, later the same night. As requested by the administration, the resolution provides $843 billion for discretionary spending in FY2006. Although the budget resolution is non-binding, it provides a blueprint for federal spending in the upcoming fiscal year.
The resolution directs eight House and six Senate committees to find $34.7 billion in mandatory spending cuts over five years. Specifically, the House Energy and Commerce and Senate Finance Committees, which have jurisdiction over the Medicaid program, are instructed to cut $14.7 billion and $13.7 billion respectively.
During consideration of the budget resolution, the Senate approved an amendment offered by Sen. Gordon Smith (R-NH) that would have restored funding for the Medicaid program (see The Source, 3/18/05). On April 26, Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-SD) offered a motion to instruct conferees that would have retained the Senate amendment. Although the motion was approved, 348-72, conferees struck the provision from the final conference report.
The resolution also proposes to extend through 2010 several tax provisions included in the 2003 tax law (P.L. 108-27). These include: the accelerated increase in the child tax credit, the expansion of the 10 percent income tax bracket, and the expansions of the standard deduction and 15 percent income tax bracket for married taxpayers filing jointly.
In FY2006, the resolution provides $31.7 billion for international affairs; $92 billion for education, training, employment and social services; and $262.2 billion for health care programs.
To address the ongoing cost of the war in Iraq, the resolution includes a $50 billion reserve for supplemental appropriations.
Stressing the need for mandatory spending cuts, Rep. Roger Wicker (R-MS) stated, “Entitlement spending continues to grow with no restraint. We have allowed mandatory spending to be on autopilot, and now it consumes 55 percent of our total budget. It is time we wake up and take control of this spending. Today our mandatory spending not only is growing at a rate far beyond what any of us could have imagined, it is also growing at a rate far beyond our means to sustain it. Left unchecked, over 62 percent of our total budget will be mandatory spending by the year 2015… This will place an unsustainable burden on our economy and eventually crowd out other priorities like education, transportation, and veterans programs.” He added, “Our budget makes the tough choice to begin dealing with this problem now. It takes the critical step in slowing the growth of spending by including reconciliation instructions to the authorizing committees to find a specified amount of savings in the mandatory programs under their jurisdiction. In total, these savings would slow the growth of our mandatory spending by about one-tenth of 1 percent over 5 years. That is all. And while that may not sound like much, it is a critical first step.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called the budget resolution “a missed opportunity,” stating, “Instead of strengthening Social Security, this budget spends 100 percent of the Social Security surplus, $160 billion for this year alone, on tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Instead of being an engine of growth, this budget and its deficits will put the brake on job creation.” In addition, she said that the budget resolution was a missed opportunity “because instead of being a blueprint of positive initiatives for the future, this budget is an assault on our values. The budget calls for $10 billion in Medicaid cuts, maybe more, despite the fact that both this House and the other body explicitly rejected such cuts. That is a cut that is deeper than was even originally proposed by the President…Republicans must explain to the American people, who oppose Medicaid cuts by 4 to 1, why they insist on slashing funds for sick children, seniors in nursing homes and the disabled. Governors across the country, both Democrats and Republicans, oppose these cuts, because they know the devastating impact they will have on Americans, more than 1 million of whom will likely lose their health coverage.”
