CONGRESS Republicans take step to pass budget

Record budget deficits concern Democrats and moderate Republicans.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional Republicans hope weakened restrictions on tax cuts will end their gridlock over the federal budget, but they could be rolling the dice because they may be short of votes in the Senate.
After a two-month stalemate, top Republicans decided to try pushing a $2.4 trillion budget plan through Congress this week. House approval, which seemed virtually certain, could come as early as today.
Moderates' views
Interviews with moderate GOP senators Tuesday, however, indicated that at least three of them oppose the weaker plan, which potentially leaves Senate leaders a vote shy of passage. Democrats and moderate Republicans say the limits are needed in an era of record budget deficits expected to soar past $400 billion this election year.
The plan would impose tax-cut curbs that would expire next year, rather than lasting five years like those the narrowly divided Senate approved in March. It probably also would exempt three popular middle-class tax reductions, probably the only cuts that will pass Congress this year anyway.
"That just seems to me is just paying lip service" to the need for reducing record federal deficits, said moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he wanted the Senate to vote on the proposal before leaving at week's end for a Memorial Day recess. He and other Republicans were hoping moderates would feel pressured into voting "yes."
Yet Frist said he did not rule out putting off the showdown until next month.
"Everybody knows I don't have the votes coming into it," Frist conceded to reporters.
President Bush has opposed limiting the tax cuts, although he plays no formal role in Congress' budget because it takes effect without his signature.
With the restraints expiring next year, the battle almost certainly would be rejoined during debate on the 2006 budget.