WASHINGTON — The Democrat-controlled House approved a budget blueprint drawn to President Barack Oba ma’s specifications Thursday, and the Senate hastened to follow suit after administration allies rejected alternatives from liberals and conservatives alike.
The vote in the House was 233-196, largely along party lines, for a $3.6 trillion plan that includes a deficit of $1.2 trillion.
The country wants “real change, and we have come here to make a difference,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said as both chambers worked on plans to boost spending on domestic programs, raise taxes on the wealthy in two years and clear the way for action later in the year on Obama’s priority items of health care, energy and education.
Republicans in both houses accused Democrats of drafting plans that would hurt the recession-ravaged economy in the long run, rather than help it, and saddle future generations with too much debt.
“The administration’s budget simply taxes too much, spends too much and borrows too much at a moment when we can least afford it,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Among Colorado’s delegation, Democrats Diana DeGette, Jared Polis, John Salazar and Ed Perlmutter voted for the House budget bill. Republicans Mike Coffman and Doug Lamborn were joined by Democrat Betsy Markey in opposing the measure.
“I grappled with this budget, but ultimately could not support it,” Markey, a freshman from Fort Collins, said in a statement. “I was elected to bring fiscal responsibility back to Washington, and I believe that Congress must be more aggressive in cutting our federal deficit.”
Despite the rhetoric, there was no suspense as lawmakers engaged in an annual budget ritual destined to end in approval of the blueprints drafted by Obama’s supporters and supported by the White House.
In the House, that meant voting first on doomed alternatives drafted by progressives, the Congressional Black Caucus, Republicans and a splinter group of conservatives.
In the Senate, it meant a day of sifting through nonbinding proposals often meant to score political points.
The House plan called for spending $3.6 trillion in the budget year that begins Oct. 1, according to the Congressional Budget Office, compared with $3.5 trillion for the Senate version and $3.6 trillion for Obama’s original plan.
While they represented victories for the administration, the budgets merely cleared the way for work later in the year on key presidential priorities — expansion and overhaul of the nation’s health- care system, creation of a new energy policy and sweeping changes in education.
Major battles lie ahead, particularly over health care and energy. And while Obama made a series of specific proposals to fund his initiatives, congressional budget-writers avoided taking a position on his recommended curtailing of Medicare spending, for example, or imposing hundreds of billions of dollars in new costs on the nation’s polluters.
The budget plans do not require Obama’s signature, but the House and Senate will have to reconcile the two versions before they can move on to the next phase of Obama’s agenda.
“We are not that far apart,” said Rep. John Spratt, the South Carolina Democrat who chairs the House Budget Committee.
