Conservative Use of the Budget Process

Reconnecting Tax and Budget Policies
by John S. Irons April 1, 2005
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=489159

A very important Read for Those interested in how Conservative Republicans handle the Budgeting process. The most relative element was a Link:

Sticking Points in the Budget

The House of Representatives and the Senate passed different versions of the federal budget, which must now be reconciled and then passed by each chamber in order to go into effect. Here are some key differences and potential irresolvable issues.
Domestic Discretionary Spending: The House and Senate versions are $13 billion apart over the next 5 years, and $4 billion apart in 2006.
Medicaid: The House version includes up to $20 billion in cuts to Medicaid. The Senate, over the objections of most Republicans, passed by a small margin a bipartisan amendment to remove the cuts from the Senate’s version.
ANWR: The Senate’s budget contains a back-door provision allowing drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR). The House version does not contain this provision.
PayGo: Both the House and Senate versions contain unbalanced PayGo rules which require spending costs to be offset, but do not require costs due to tax changes to be offset. In the Senate, an amendment restoring balanced PayGo rules failed on a 50-50 vote. Last year, negotiations on PayGo helped to sink the budget.
Process: The Senate’s version also includes a new rule that requires 60 votes to approve any bill that increases entitlement spending by $5 billion or more over any 10-year period from 2015-2055.
Tax Cuts: The Senate version created reconciliation protection for $128 billion in revenue reduction over the next 5 years, while the House version protects $45 billion and includes $106 billion total.

A truly interesting element of current Budgeting efforts has become the Rank-and-File silence from Republicans. Grass-Roots Republicans will be as injured from current Budgeting practice as will Democrats, while None are within the 'privileged arena' of Tax Cuts benefits. One functionally has to possess an Income over $1 million per year to gain any Tax return which is a blip on the Scope. The Budget Cuts in Discretionary Spending will absolutely insist on Tax increases at the State level, due to mandated Federal liabilities placed on the States. The Bush Social Security Privatization Plan will rob normal Republican(who make on average higher FICA tax payments to the SS Fund) of more longterm Benefits from the Social Security system than Democrats. The majority of Republicans will actually be hit worse by the current Congressional agenda than Anyone else in the Country. lgl