Senate edges toward OK of Republican balanced budget plan

WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans muscled a balanced-budget plan to the cusp of Senate passage early Friday that positions Congress for months of battling President Barack Obama over the GOP’s goals of slicing spending and dismantling his health care law.

Senators worked into Friday’s pre-dawn hours on a stack of amendments to the measure, which closely follows a blueprint the House passed Wednesday. Both budgets embody a conservative vision of shrinking projected federal deficits by more than $5 trillion over the coming decade, mostly by cutting health care and other benefit programs and without raising taxes.

The Senate was to begin a spring recess after approving the measure, leaving Congress’ two GOP-run chambers to negotiate a compromise budget in mid-April. The legislation is a non-binding blueprint that does not require Obama’s signature, but it lays the groundwork for future bills that seem destined for veto fights with the president.

The budget’s solidly ideological tenor contrasted with a bipartisan bill the House approved Thursday permanently blocking perennial cuts in physicians’ Medicare fees. Though the Senate may not complete that measure until after legislators’ two-week break, the House vote let the chamber’s GOP leaders demonstrate that they can govern.

The doctors’ legislation, which also provides money for health care programs for children and low-income people, would be partly financed with higher premiums for top-earning Medicare recipients. That marked a rare if modest instance of lawmakers agreeing to tighten the finances of one of the government’s most expensive benefit programs.

The Senate neared the end of its budget work while enduring one of its more painful traditions: A multi-hour “vote-a-rama” in which senators repeatedly debate and vote on a pile of non-binding amendments well past midnight.

Senators offer the amendments because the votes can demonstrate support for a policy or be used to embarrass opponents in future campaigns.

Those approved included one by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, entitling married same-sex couples to Social Security and veterans’ spousal benefits. It got 11 GOP votes, including from several Republicans facing competitive re-elections next year.

Also adopted was one by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., aimed at thwarting Obama administration efforts to reduce coal pollution; and another by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., endorsing up to seven days of paid sick leave annually for workers.

Following the usual choreography, by late Thursday McConnell and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., took to the chamber’s floor to beg colleagues to withdraw their proposals.

“We can say I gotcha on this one, I gotcha on that one,” said Reid, adding, “No one’s election can be determined by what has taken place tonight.”

Congress’ GOP budgets both matched the spending plan that Obama presented last month when it comes to defense, proposing $612 billion for next year, a 4.5 percent boost over current levels. Some conservatives were unhappy because they wanted more of the extra military spending to be offset with savings from elsewhere in the budget.

For the most part, the Republican blueprints diverge starkly from Obama’s fiscal plan.

While his leaves a projected deficit exceeding $600 billion 10 years from now, the Senate plan claims a surplus of $3 billion. Republicans said they were making the government live within its means, while Democrats said the GOP was using budget gimmicks and would whack away at food stamps, student loans and other programs that buttress working families.

Over the decade, Obama would raise $2 trillion in higher taxes from the wealthy, corporations and smokers while granting tax breaks to low-income and middle-class families. He would boost spending on domestic programs including road construction, preschools and community colleges and veterans.

The Senate budget would cut $4.3 trillion from benefit programs over the next 10 years, including annulling Obama’s health care law, a step the president would without doubt veto.

Those savings would include $431 billion from Medicare, matching Obama’s figure. The House budget would pare $148 billion from the health care program for the elderly and convert it into a voucher-like program for future beneficiaries, a step the Senate shunned.

The Senate budget would cut $236 billion from the budgets of nondefense agencies. The House would go even further, slicing $759 billion.