Posted on 12/20/2005 10:06:18 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - A Senate vote on a deficit-reduction bill looks to be so tight that Vice President Dick Cheney was rushing home from an overseas diplomatic mission to be the tiebreaker for saving one of the Bush administration's top priorities.
The showdown vote loomed on the bill, which would cut some federal benefits and trim budget deficits by $40 billion through the end of the decade.
Cheney was in Pakistan Tuesday to check on U.S. aid to victims of an October earthquake that killed as estimated 75,000 people. He also met with President Pervez Musharraf.
The budget vote is expected to be a close one — last month the bill squeaked through the Senate in a 52-47 tally. Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (news, bio, voting record) was one of two Democrats voting for the bill then, but said Tuesday he will vote against the bill, in large part because provisions on Medicaid and welfare reform would shift costs to state and local governments.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (news, bio, voting record) of Louisiana, the other Democrat to support the budget last month, is set to switch her vote since the bill no longer contains aid for Katrina victims, which has been attached to another measure. Sen. Jon Corzine (news, bio, voting record), a Democrat elected governor of New Jersey, was absent last month but hopes to return to the Capitol for the final vote.
Five Republicans are also expected to oppose the bill; one Republican who opposed the bill last month is expected to switch his vote.
The vote shifts set up a 50-50 deadlock assuming all senators vote, requiring Cheney's return to Washington to salvage the budget plan with a tie-breaking vote.
Cheney spokesman Steve Schmidt told reporters traveling with Cheney in Pakistan that the vice president was "returning to Washington to be on hand in the Senate to fulfill his constitutional duties as president of the Senate and cast tie-breaking votes, if necessary."
Presiding over the Senate is among Cheney's constitutional duties, although vice presidents historically have not routinely attended such sessions. Cheney's change in plans meant that he would have to forego visits to both Saudi Arabia and Egypt on this trip.
A tight vote was also expected as Senate Republicans waged a Christmas week battle with Democrats and GOP moderates over allowing oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, attached the drilling plan to a wartime Pentagon spending bill that also included $29 billion in new aid for Gulf Coast hurricane victims and as well as new money for border security and winter heating subsidies in an attempt to crack a threatened filibuster. Both the defense and budget bills were passed by the House on Monday before it adjourned for the year.
On the budget bill, five Republicans are expected to vote against it: Mike DeWine of Ohio; Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine; Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island; and Gordon Smith of Oregon. Smith voted for the bill last month but is a "nay" vote now, largely because of cuts to Medicaid benefits.
But Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who opposed the bill last month over provisions allowing Arctic drilling, has switched to "yea" since the drilling plan was dropped.
The partisan fighting over the budget seemed to outweigh the measure's likely impact. The $40 billion in deficit savings blends $10 billion in new revenues from anticipated auctions of television airwaves to wireless companies with fairly small cuts to benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and student loan subsidies.
Opinions varied on whether Stevens, the powerful patron of the Arctic refuge drilling plan, would prevail in overcoming a filibuster threatened by Sen. Maria Cantwell (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., and others.
Overall, the deficit reduction bill claimed savings of $39.7 billion over five years. That's just 2.5 percent of the $1.6 trillion in total red ink that congressional officials estimate will pile up during the same period. The slender results nonetheless pleased GOP conservatives.
The savings included $4.8 billion from Medicaid, the health care program for the poor. One provision would make it harder for beneficiaries to transfer assets to their children in order to qualify for government-paid nursing home care, which has raised the ire of the AARP, the powerful lobby for seniors.
Drug companies won a last-minute break against cuts to their Medicaid payments at the expense of beneficiaries, who face higher co-payments that advocates for the poor say will drive people out of the program. Regional health insurance companies, another powerful lobby, stopped a Senate bid to cut a subsidy fund designed to entice them into the Medicare market.
Moderate Republicans in the Senate also were angry over a last-minute deal to extend the 1996 welfare reform law. They complained it didn't provide enough child care help as more parents will have to meet work requirements to obtain benefits.
Among the Medicare changes was a one-year freeze in home health care payments. A second provision accelerates a previously scheduled increase for better-off beneficiaries in the cost of premiums for Part B, which covers physician services.
Proposed cuts in food stamps and crop subsidies were dropped from the package.
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On the Net: Senate: http://senate.gov
Vice President of United States Dick Cheney waves as he leaves Pakistan with his wife Lynn from Chaklala air base in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005. Cheney arrived in Pakistan on a one-day visit that included a tour of quake-hit areas in Kashmir. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)
Are these actual cuts, or just reductions in the rate of increase?
Just reductions in growth. No cuts. And when the bill comes due on the Medicare Prescription Drug Program, it won't matter one bit.
Talk about putting lipstick on a pig.
some look to be actual cuts.. good luck slowing the growth of anything in ConGre$$ these days..
we still have anwr tacked on to the hind end of this pig hanging on for dear life. 50 50 works for me. Go Dick!
L
Remember when the Dems demagogued Republican proposed reductions in growth as being "cuts" that would hurt the poor? Everybody rightly pointed out that these were not cuts at all. Let's not try to re-write the definition now.
L
Perhaps, but it's moving in the right direction for the first time in years. Once they put their toe in the water and realize it won't cost them elections, it may even help they might get around in time to real slashes. Well, it's always a hope. LOL.
But I'll give them some credit for doing this, though it's ridiculous how hard it is even for miniscule cuts on spending growth.
Anwr is on another bill that will need 60 votes to break a fillabuster.
Thanks. The defense bill, I believe.
to be specific..
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A tight vote was also expected as Senate Republicans waged a Christmas week battle with Democrats and GOP moderates over allowing oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, attached the drilling plan to a wartime Pentagon spending bill that also included $29 billion in new aid for Gulf Coast hurricane victims and as well as new money for border security and winter heating subsidies in an attempt to crack a threatened filibuster. Both the defense and budget bills were passed by the House on Monday before it adjourned for the year.
I don't mind if it take time...if it gets done. And I believe it will.
Uhh....I was talking about the Republicans who champion this as a spending "cut".
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