By Stan Collender, NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007

There's much to talk about this week, so here's an opportunity to serve yourself from the federal budget buffet. As always, start with the fiscal finger food, work your way through the economic entrées, and end up with a few budget bonbons for dessert.

	Many who howled the loudest at last week's supplemental either supported earmarks for their colleagues last year or sat by quietly when they were adopted.

Give Them Some Credit
I have been more than a little surprised at how fast the House and Senate Budget Committees and the full Senate have been able to pass their versions of the FY08 congressional budget resolution. The real test -- a compromise that will be able to pass the House and Senate -- is still ahead. But in the meantime, the fact that a budget resolution is moving ahead at all, let along so quickly, is noteworthy.

Why Is Anyone Surprised?
The main criticism about the budget resolutions working their way through the House and Senate has been that they don't do much. But it's been obvious since last year's midterm election that incremental change was all that was likely this year and the best that anyone should expect. The narrow margins in the House and Senate, extreme partisanship, and a Congress and White House controlled by different political parties meant from the start that a budget deal of any kind was extremely unlikely. There never was going to be a deal over entitlements and taxes this year. It didn't take a fortune teller to read these budget tea leaves.

Progress? What Progress?
Perhaps it's grasping at straws, but it should be taken as a positive development and hopeful sign if Congress adopts a budget resolution conference report this year. It wouldn't be as good as an unambiguous return to fiscal discipline, but even though the House and Senate were controlled by the same political party last year they were not able to agree on a budget resolution. In fact, a budget resolution has barely been something the congressional leadership has cared about in recent years.

What's happened so far this year is at least somewhat encouraging. After years of desultory budget debates in Washington, this has the possibility of being a turning point.

Can You Say Appropriations?
If a budget resolution conference report is adopted this year, it likely will not include reconciliation instructions. This means two things.

First, there will be no reconciliation process. With no big changes in entitlements and revenues assumed in the budget resolution, reconciliation isn't needed. (Congressional leaders are assuming the alternative minimum tax fix included in the budget will have such overwhelming support that they will have little difficulty getting it adopted without the reconciliation procedures.) That will save months of work and clear the way for other business.

Second, appropriations are not supposed to be considered in the House until either the budget resolution conference report is adopted or May 15, whichever comes first. This usually slows down the start of appropriations season because, when a budget resolution is adopted, it almost always happens after April 15. The Senate, which does not have a May 15 escape clause, has to go through extreme parliamentary gyrations and wait weeks or months to begin work on appropriations without a budget resolution conference report in place.

A focus on appropriations was virtually preordained by the 2006 election. Congress' failure to adopt more than two of the FY07 appropriations became a symbol for its overall lack of accomplishments and an issue for the voters. The House and Senate leadership wants to show it can make the congressional railroad run on time and the FY08 appropriations will be the most visible way to do that.

Party Like It's 2010
The main Republican gripe about the budget approved by the House Budget Committee this past week was that it didn't assume that the tax cuts expiring in 2010 would be extended and, therefore, constituted what many Republicans said [PDF] was "the largest tax increase in history."

The fact that Republicans were talking about a tax cut that will expire three calendar and two fiscal years from now is the latest sign that the 2008 election campaign is under way. While almost all of the attention has been on the very early start of the presidential campaign, the budget fight is the best indication yet that the fight for control of Congress is actually further along than the one being waged for the White House and that the Democrats and Republicans are already throwing sharp elbows as they maneuver for position.

The tax issue raised by Republicans this past week has absolutely nothing to do with the FY08 budget. Even if the congressional budget resolution assumed the tax provisions would be extended as the Republicans say they want, that would not mean legislation would be enacted this year to make that happen.

Earmarks, Etc.
As the full Senate and House Budget Committees were approving an FY08 budget resolution, the House agreed to a supplemental appropriation for activities in Iraq and Afghanistan that added spending for a number of U.S. businesses, industries and regions that claimed they needed the assistance.

These add-ons are just the latest example of why it will be so difficult to get rid of earmarks and other tax and spending provisions that benefit a particular person or group. Narrow majorities in the House and Senate provide individual lawmakers or coalitions with enormous power. This is especially the case with high-profile legislation important to the leadership, where a defeat would raise significant questions about its abilities. As happened with this supplemental, providing members who are actually undecided or are pretending to be on the fence with some additional incentive to vote for a bill is a well-established tradition.

It's also nonpartisan. Many of the Republicans who howled the loudest last week either supported earmarks for their colleagues last year or sat by quietly when they were adopted.

This won't change while the Democratic or Republican majorities are small and the partisanship intense.

O Canada
If you have news alerts set to send you updates on the "federal budget," you know that the 2007 Canadian budget was formally "tabled" last week. As is typical in a parliamentary system of government, the government's budget was immediately approved. In fact, news reports indicated that some of the proposals in the budget took effect on midnight, March 18 -- that is, on the day before the budget was presented.

-- Stan Collender is a NationalJournal.com contributing editor and managing director at Qorvis Communications in Washington, D.C. A frequent speaker on the budget and the economy to audiences across the country, he is also author of "The Guide to the Federal Budget." His e-mail address is secollender@nationaljournal.com.

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