WASHINGTON — Congress passed a 2006 budget blueprint Thursday, drafted by Republicans, that calls for new belt-tightening in major domestic programs, even as it allows $106 billion more in tax cuts and leaves a $382-billion deficit.
The measure also paves the way for adoption this year of legislation to expand oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a top White House priority.
The package -- approved 214 to 211 by the House and 52 to 47 by the Senate on Thursday night -- calls for $40 billion in savings in Medicaid, farm programs and other fast-growing entitlement programs over the next five years. Those votes came after House and Senate negotiators struck an agreement earlier in the day.
California's senators, both Democrats, opposed the measure.
The budget savings fall short of the $69 billion that President Bush initially sought. Still, the budget agreement marks the first time since 1997 that Congress has taken even a modest step toward slowing the growth of government entitlements.
The budget -- a compromise between versions passed by the House and Senate -- is a victory for Republican leaders, who were hoping to avoid repeating the embarrassment they suffered last year, when the two chambers could not reach agreement on a budget.
"Is this a perfect budget? Of course not," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa). "Having a plan is better than not having a plan."
The budget resolution is a nonbinding blueprint that does not require Bush's signature. But it sets spending ceilings and revenue targets for tax and appropriations bills drafted later this year.
It also sets in motion a procedure that will allow the tax and spending cuts mandated by the budget to be considered in a special bill that is immune from filibusters in the Senate. The Alaskan oil-drilling initiative is expected to be part of that measure, enabling it to circumvent the filibusters that have blocked that signature piece of Bush's energy policy in past years.
Negotiations over final terms of the budget were tricky because the House, where conservatives have been restive over the growth of government spending in recent years, insisted on tighter restrictions on domestic spending than the Senate wanted.
A point of particular controversy was Medicaid, the federal-state healthcare program for the poor. The House version of the budget called for slowing the growth of the program by $20 billion over five years. In the Senate, Republican Gordon H. Smith of Oregon led an effort to spare the program from cuts.
