Washington’s Tug of War


by Sen. Chuck Grassley, of Iowa


 

Lots of people "inside the Beltway" in the nation’s capital get twisted into knots over the annual budget process. This year received extra close scrutiny from the media, interest groups and lawmakers because it was the first budget submitted by our newly elected president. Plus, for the first time in a half-century, the nation’s budget blueprint was delivered by a Republican White House to a Republican majority in Congress.

 

The president’s $1.94 trillion budget proposal outlines tax and spending policy for the fiscal year that begins October 1. While a budget accounted for in the trillions may seem hard for many working families to digest, households across the country can appreciate what it means to live within one’s means. Thankfully, Washington finally does also. For years, I have worked tirelessly to rein in runaway government spending. I never thought I’d live to see the day when Washington would actually run an annual surplus, ending a 30-year streak of deficit spending.

But even in this welcome new era of surpluses, public policy making must still run through the legislative meat grinder on Capitol Hill. And it’s become clear that the ritualistic tug of war in Washington, the give-and-take among members of each political party, greatly influences how tax and spending proposals get enacted into law.

 

And in the rare circumstance found today in the U.S. Senate, where the chamber is evenly divided 50-50 between the parties, finding legislative consensus takes on an unpredictable life of its own. The budget debate reveals the challenges in crafting together a package that will pass muster with conservatives, liberals and everyone-in-between. This leaves minimal chance that Congress will simply rubber stamp the president’s budget proposal. In fact, the president’s budgets historically have been dead on arrival.

 

But that's not true this year. President Bush’s blueprint has survived mostly intact with strong bipartisan support. That’s a major achievement for the 43rd president. It would be a totally new phenomenon for any president to get everything he wanted. In our system, the president proposes and the Congress disposes. As the tax and spending targets wound their way through the Senate in early April, consensus was reached to provide for substantial tax relief, pay down the national debt and add more money for agriculture, Medicare and education.

 

When the president presented his plan before a joint session of Congress in January, I likened his proposed budget to quality Iowa beef: lean where it should be and fat just where it counts. As work begins in Congress to fill in the details, I look forward to putting some meat on the bones of the president’s budget.

 

On the spending side of the ledger, I won Senate approval to allocate more federal dollars for agriculture, a Medicare prescription drug benefit and health coverage for disabled children. Specifically, my $63.5 billion agriculture amendment makes room in the budget for fiscal years 2003-2011 to help pay for a counter-cyclical program, regulatory relief, and enhanced conservation efforts. I’m also pleased the president’s proposal includes priorities I have long championed to encourage the production of electricity from wind and biomass and a provision to help family farmers better manage risk with tax-deferred farmer savings accounts.

 

On the tax relief front, Republicans have won extraordinary consensus for tax relief, moving the marker under the previous administration from ground zero to nearly $1.3 trillion. Moreover, the Senate is on record to send back $80 billion to taxpayers this year. As lawmakers begin the give-and-take over the summer months in Washington’s annual tug of war, I’ll serve as an anchor on one end to ensure that the first real chance for meaningful tax relief in a generation isn’t allowed to unravel before our eyes.