Washington – Democrats controlling Congress presented a $2.9 trillion budget blueprint Wednesday, ensuring a confrontation with President Bush over spending boosts for education and other domestic programs.
The Democratic plan promises a budget surplus in five years but would achieve it only by allowing some of Bush’s tax cuts to expire.
The nonbinding plan for next year faces House and Senate votes today. Democrats agreed to it after weeks of private negotiations between the chairmen of the House and Senate Budget committees. The House and Senate passed competing budgets in March.
The most immediate result would clear the way for action this summer on annual spending bills totaling $1.1 trillion for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. That figure includes $145 billion in sure-to-be-contested money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A $23 billion increase for domestic agency budgets awards sizable increases for education, veterans and health care programs.
The White House opposes the increase and has promised vetoes of annual spending bills that break Bush’s budget for such programs.
His spending plan essentially would freeze them.
After a $214 billion deficit for the current budget year, the deficit would rise to $252 billion for 2008 but fall to $235 billion the next year, according to the Democrats’ plan.
But by 2012, the Democratic budget promises a $41 billion surplus. It does so by assuming taxes on income, dividends and stock sales go up in 2011 instead of being extended, as Republicans and Bush call for.
Republicans credit the tax cuts, passed in 2001 and 2003, with reviving the economy. Most Democrats say the cuts favor wealthier people.
