Senate Rejects Bush's Cuts
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday voted to restore cuts sought by President Bush in Medicaid, education and other domestic programs, and then approved a $2.6-trillion budget for fiscal year 2006.
The vote on the budget was 51-49.
The Senate's actions set up a confrontation with the House, which earlier Thursday approved its own version of the budget -- one that hews more closely to Bush's initial spending and tax proposals.
They also shone a spotlight on fissures in the Senate's GOP majority. Four Republicans broke ranks with their party to vote against the overall bill; seven voted to restore funds for Medicaid but to study ways to save money in the future.
"This is not a vote against fiscal responsibility," said Sen. Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, a moderate Republican and the Medicaid amendment's principal author. "This is a vote for cutting the deficit in an orderly way
As votes continued late into the night on one challenge after another to the Senate Budget Committee's proposal, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the committee chairman, admitted that the effort to control the deficit -- which reached $412 billion last year -- was under "serious stress."
"A lot of what's happening is turning a cute little bunny rabbit into a camel," Gregg said as the parade of successful amendments proceeded. Among them was one that would roll back the maximum amount of Social Security benefits subject to income tax for wealthier seniors.
The budget sets the basic outlines of tax and spending targets as legislation to fund the government moves through Congress, and Gregg said he hoped that the version ultimately negotiated with the House would be more restrained than what the Senate approved.
If the two chambers cannot reach agreement, they would be forced to go without a plan, as they did last year.
A budget breakdown would be an embarrassment for the GOP leadership, which had expected that the larger Republican majorities in both chambers -- and particularly in the Senate -- would allow easy passage of the president's proposals.
It also could doom a top energy priority: allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A measure smoothing the way for drilling legislation is included in the Senate's version of the budget and is considered likely to emerge intact from a compromise with the House.
