Today in Washington D. C. - March 5, 2008

On The Floor: Senate reconvened at 9:30 AM today. Following an hour of morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) overhaul bill (S. 2663). Roll call votes are expected today. Yesterday, the Senate rejected an amendment to the CSPC bill by Sen. DeMint (R-SC) which would have substituted the text of the House-passed CSPC overhaul.

This week marks the beginning of the yearly budget debate. The Senate Budget Committee begins its markup of the Democrats’ fiscal 2009 budget proposal at 2:30 PM, while the House Budget Committee will mark up its version at 10 AM.

From Senate & News Sources: Today begins the annual budget battle on Capitol Hill. Both the House and Senate will be marking up Democrat budget proposals for fiscal year 2009.

The Washington Post reports that the budget proposed by Senate Democrats “would inject billions of additional dollars into such domestic priorities as education, energy and transportation,” which “would push the federal deficit to more than $350 billion in fiscal 2009.” Yet the Democrat budget purports to balance the budget in four years. “To get there, however, Democrats assume all of President Bush’s first-term tax cuts would expire on schedule in 2010, bringing in billions in revenue,” according to The Washington Post. This could amount to a $1.3 trillion tax increase.

CQ Today discussed Democrats’ potential use of the reconciliation process to move various legislation: “Many House Democrats want to use reconciliation to advance priorities such as a fully offset ‘patch’ for the alternative minimum tax (AMT), renewable-energy tax breaks that would likely be offset with a tax increase on oil and gas companies, and legislation to prevent a 10 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians.”

Yesterday, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, spoke on the floor about how the Democrats handled the budget process last year. He pointed out that the Democrats’ fiscal year 2008 budget assumed $736 billion in tax increases, raised non-defense discretionary spending by $205 billion, grew the debt by $2.5 trillion, all while failing to address $66 trillion in entitlement liabilities.

Meanwhile, as The Wall Street Journal reports that “almost half of Americans think the [Iraq] war effort is going well, and that the U.S. should keep its troops there, at least for the time being,” The Hill notes that Democrats are once again being forced to change their strategy on Iraq: “Congressional Democrats searching for a message that will resonate on the Iraq war are preparing an argument that getting troops out of the conflict is the only way to rebuild a spent military.”

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