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From: Adam Kolton [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 7:00 AM
To: Arctic Lobbying Team
Subject: [ak_lobby] CQ: reconciliation instructions to House Resources?
 
 The way I read this CQ article it looks like Nusssle may give House Resources Comm reconciliation instructions with intent that they sell federal land as per Bush Admin proposal. As we all know, of course, House Resources will still have freedom to do Arctic even if it is not specified. Fortunately, there is a lot of opposition to the asset sales proposal too, including from some conservatives...both issues can be helped if we press case that Resources should get no reconciliation instructions.
 
 
BUDGET: The House Budget Committee will take its long-awaited
crack at the FY07 budget resolution Wednesday, having postponed
its work due to new Majority Leader Boehner's efforts to bridge
the GOP's moderate-conservative divide.
   The House Republican budget plan, expected to total nearly
$2.8 trillion, was still developing late last week.
   To keep moderates on board, Budget Chairman Nussle has agreed
to keep his reconciliation target for cutting mandatory spending
in the $5-7 billion range, Republican aides said. Discretionary
spending will stay close to the president's target of $873
billion, with non-security programs facing cuts sought by
conservatives. Nussle will also propose a reserve fund for
emergency war, avian flu and natural disaster spending.
   The reconciliation number was fluctuating as underlying
policy assumptions were being finalized, aides said. But the
plan eschews such big-ticket items as Medicare, Medicaid,
student loans and Arctic drilling in favor of a mix of
"one-time" revenue sources like federal land and asset sales and
entitlement "reforms" like correcting unemployment insurance
overpayments.
   The low reconciliation number will be much closer to the
Senate plan, which assumes $3 billion in savings, than to
President Bush's $65 billion worth of mandatory spending cuts.
But the Senate version, narrowly approved before the St.
Patrick's Day recess, assumes its savings from Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge oil and gas drilling revenues, which House
moderates oppose.
   House moderates are also finding Bush's discretionary
spending proposal hard to swallow and are emboldened by Senate
moves to add roughly $16 billion for such things as education,
health care and job-training. Some moderates are threatening to
oppose the budget resolution if House GOP leaders do not agree
to more discretionary spending.
   Without higher savings from reconciliation, deficits over the
next five years will appear worse than in Bush's budget, which
nonetheless assumes an additional $1 trillion tacked on to the
deficit. Tom Kahn, staff director for the House Budget Committee
Democrats, said the GOP budget is likely to have the "same
fundamental flaw as the president's budgets: huge budget
deficits and deep cuts in government services critical to
working families."
   Republican Study Committee conservatives are drafting their
own budget alternative, which will slice deeply into every major
entitlement program save Social Security, but it is unlikely to
gain much traction.
   As an olive branch to conservatives, the House budget is
expected to include reconciliation instructions for extensions
of 2001 and 2003 tax cuts set to expire over the next five
years, but aides said the tax provisions have not been
finalized.
   Also softening the blow for conservatives, House Republican
leaders have instructed Nussle to draft a separate budget
process overhaul bill. That bill will address President Bush's
proposal to reinstate line-item veto authority, as well as a
"sunset commission" to evaluate government programs and a "rainy
day fund" for emergency spending, aides said. The measure will
move on a separate track from the budget resolution later this
year. The Senate Budget Committee is also working on a budget
process bill.
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