House Budget Breaks Down over Cuts

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Senate leaders yesterday had to postpone a vote on a package of tax cuts that President Bush wants and House leaders were forced to pull their major spending cuts from the floor at the last minute. These are the latest in a series of setback for the Republican leaders and the president's agenda in Congress. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports on the Capitol and she joins me now. Good morning.

ANDREA SEABROOK reporting:

Good morning, Renee.

MONTAGNE: Tell us what happened in the House. I understand moderates and conservatives can't agree.

SEABROOK: Well, leaders have been trying to pass this package of about $50 billion of new spending cuts for several weeks now. Much of the programs that are cut are government social welfare programs like Medicaid, food stamps, school lunches, child support programs, and that's really part of the Republican leaders' problem. Those are politically difficult kinds of things to cut, and for many to vote for it's very difficult, especially moderate Republicans.

At the same time, conservatives want to cut even deeper into those programs. So leaders have been trying to make tiny changes to the bill here and there to gather a few votes here, a few votes there, but it just didn't work this week. And last night they ended up pulling the bill completely from the floor.

MONTAGNE: And in the Senate, Andrea, moderate Republicans are also stalling tax cuts. Are the party leaders losing control?

SEABROOK: Well, Renee, they sure aren't having the same kind of success they've had so consistently for the last five years, anyway, especially in the House, where leaders are somewhat hampered by the fact that now former Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been indicted and forced to step aside from leadership and whip Roy Blunt is trying to act in two roles. Especially in the House, the leadership is weak enough that factions within the party are dictating their moves more than their own ideas, the leaders' own ideas, or those coming from the White House. The prominent group of conservatives is pushing the whole group one way while the moderates pull them back the other way, and those of us who watch this do wonder how long that can last.

MONTAGNE: Well, Republican leaders say they'll keep pushing for budget cuts and for tax cuts, but is there any indication that their prospects of getting what they want will get better with time?

SEABROOK: Certainly not so far, Renee. And Republicans in the House have been trying to work out this balancing act for several weeks now. Those tax cuts that you mentioned--you know, tens of billions of dollars worth of tax cuts--are planned in both the House and the Senate, and moderates are unhappy about that, to say the least, when so many of the budget spending cuts are coming from those programs for the poor, mainly, and many of the tax cuts would give money back to wealthier Americans and investors.

At this point it appears that Republican leaders may be forced to make even bigger changes than just tweaks here and there to get the bill passed. At the same time, Democrats are 100 percent united against these bills. They say that it's--they've been calling it even immoral to cut spending on the backs of the poor, as they put it, and to give money back to wealthier Americans. They say it's part of a larger trend of the last five years and it's only now that the leadership has had to do such sort of what they would say is bald-faced moves.

And again, the more they roll back tax cuts and spending cuts, the more the Republican leaders upset conservatives. But the deeper they make the cuts in social programs and taxes, the more they upset the moderates. So they're still trying to work this out. In the House, it's supposed to come up again next week. The Senate, they're sort of regrouping and trying to figure that out, and so it'll be interesting to see what kind of progress they make.

MONTAGNE: Andrea, thanks very much.

That's NPR congressional reporter Andrea Seabrook.

This is NPR News.

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