WASHINGTON — President Bush's austere federal budget proposal, with its bold effort to curb spending on Medicare and other popular programs, establishes an unusual and potentially risky election-year strategy for congressional Republicans.
In calling for tough fiscal medicine 10 months before midterm elections, Bush is betting that voters will accept painful measures in the name of controlling government growth.
That calculation aligns Bush with conservative lawmakers, especially in the House, who believe that an offensive against federal spending is crucial to generating a large turnout from the Republican base in November's election.
"I think the American people are more concerned about overspending than anything else," said Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). "Politically, the right thing to do this year is also the popular thing to do, and that is to cut spending."
But Bush's push to reduce spending -- while making permanent the sweeping tax cuts from his first term that are due to expire by 2011 -- creates excruciating choices for centrist Republicans in Congress caught between demands for party discipline and concerns that swing voters may recoil against elements of the plan, such as the Medicare reductions.
The plan also is likely to inspire more conflict between the parties than almost any domestic proposal Bush outlined in his State of the Union address last week.
Already, candidates in House and Senate races are sparring about the 2006 budget that finally passed Congress on Wednesday without a single Democratic vote. The plan reduces spending for student college loans and Medicaid, the program that benefits low-income people and the disabled.
The president's $2.77-trillion budget for 2007 would eliminate or sharply curtail 141 programs. He proposed $65 billion in cuts in the rate of growth of federal benefit programs over the next five years -- $36 billion of it from Medicare. Taxes would be reduced by $280 billion during the same period -- and by $1.4 trillion over the subsequent five years.
The budget proposal, with its aggressive challenge to programs that Democrats favor, seems certain to elevate disputes over tax and spending priorities to the center of this year's campaign debates.
"It is a real defining line," said Jay Reiff, campaign manager for Bob Casey Jr., the Democratic challenger to Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa). "It really defines what this battle is about."
