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American Morning

Federal Budget Vote Expected Today

Aired May 03, 2001 - 10:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now to an issue on the Bush front burner, your money and Washington's plans on how to spend it. President Bush and congressional leaders have hammered out an agreement on the federal budget. Our Congressional correspondent Kate Snow offers this overview for us from Capitol Hill. She checks in once again this hour -- Kate?

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Leon.

Any time you start talking money up here on Capitol Hill, you know it's going to be a bit of a battle, especially this year that was true. The White House and President Bush had their ideas about how big a tax cut should be. They also wanted spending to be somewhat restrained. Well, Congressional Democrats had other ideas. They wanted more spending, less of a tax cut. And then there were the Congressional Republicans. Some of them wanted an even bigger tax cut.

They think they've worked it all out, Leon, with this budget resolution, this budget plan that they're going to vote on later today. We do expect the House to take it up around one or two this afternoon and the Senate to take it up after that, although right now they're still working out some last minute details.

What it calls for, essentially, is a $1.35 trillion tax cut over the next 11 years. That's a little bit smaller than the $1.6 trillion figure over 10 years that President Bush had been calling for. Also included in this, 4.9 percent of a spending increase for next year's federal spending on domestic programs. That equates to a $667 billion spending cap for the year, fiscal year 2002. Also included, $2.3 trillion in debt reduction by the year 2011, $300 billion for Medicare reform and a prescription drug benefit, $80 billion for agriculture, $28 billion in health insurance for the uninsured and $44 billion in education funding, and that's just part of what they're going to be considering in this budget.

Again, it's a deal that Republicans are happy with here on Capitol Hill. Democrats are somewhat happy with it, although they would have liked to see the tax cut reduced even more. We do think, though, that about probably as many as a dozen to 20 Democrats on the House side will probably vote for the budget and a handful of Democrats on the Senate side are likely to vote in favor of this budget later today, as well -- Leon, back to you.

HARRIS: All right, thanks, Kate. We'll get back to you later on. Kate Snow on Capitol Hill.

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