CONGRESS Election-year politics influence decisions

A bill to raise the $8.2 trillion limit on the national debt has to be passed soon.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's budget blueprint for next year is nearing its first tests on Capitol Hill, and it's clear the plan has many hurdles to overcome.
Nervous lawmakers are flinching from spending cuts proposed by Bush, and as his GOP allies draft plans to implement the budget, election-year politics are driving their decisions.
The first item to be tossed overboard is likely to be Bush's proposal for $36 billion in savings from the politically sacrosanct Medicare program for the elderly.
"On our side of the aisle, in an election year, the message is: 'Can't we put this off?"' Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said Wednesday of the plan to cut payments to Medicare providers.
One item that can't be put off much longer is a bill to raise the $8.2 trillion limit on the national debt. Congress must act before lawmakers leave Washington on March 18 for a weeklong recess or else the first default on U.S. obligations could occur.
Gregg and his House Budget Committee counterpart Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, have tentatively scheduled committee votes on the budget next week, though they've yet to detail their plans. Intractable budget deficits guarantee that whatever they produce won't play to rave reviews.
Problems
Both men are torn between the demands of conservatives for spending cuts and the reluctance of politically vulnerable Republicans from swing districts and states to cast risky votes to cut popular programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and education. The need to raise the debt limit at about the same time complicates their efforts.
Meanwhile, lawmakers have yet to act on Bush's $92 billion request for emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for additional hurricane relief.
The first step under Congress' arcane procedures for implementing the federal budget is to pass a budget resolution. That's a nonbinding blueprint that sets the limits of subsequent bills to implement the plan, including the appropriations bills that Congress passes each year.
Far less frequently, a budget resolution spins off a so-called reconciliation bill to cut benefit programs like Medicare. Last year's budget-cut bill -- signed by Bush last month -- was the first in eight years, and went through a legislative slog that showed rifts within the GOP and exposed many lawmakers to uncomfortable votes.
Cutback proposals
Nussle and Gregg both would like to try another round of cuts to entitlement programs whose budgets rise automatically with inflation and population growth. But they acknowledge it'll be difficult.
"In an election year, it's very hard to do major entitlement savings," Gregg said.
"Members are a very nervous bunch," said Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H.
Bush called for $65 billion in benefit cuts over five years when submitting his budget a month ago. But many of his proposals, such as curbs to food stamps and crop subsidies, were rejected by lawmakers last year.
"We're going to work with the committees and see what's doable," Nussle said.
A major complication in passing the budget is taxes. A key pillar of Bush's budget is extending his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, most of which are set to expire in 2010. But to add the cuts -- to tax rates, the estate tax and dividend and capital gains income -- to the budget would cost $120 billion in 2011 alone, which is virtually certain to run into resistance from deficit hawks such as Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio.
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