Spending Fight Continues: Capitol Hill vs. White House

WASHINGTON, March 8, 2011 -- The spending fight will take center stage this week on Capitol Hill, with two votes in the Senate today and more negotiations expected between Congressional leaders and the White House later in the week.

Lawmakers are trying to reach a deal to keep the government running for the remaining seven months of the current fiscal year before the latest stop-gap funding bill expires at the end of March 18.

The GOP-controlled House has already passed a bill that includes $61 billion in cuts. Senate Democrats have denounced that bill as "one of the worst pieces of legislation ever drafted" and unveiled a measure of their own that cuts around $50 billion less.

The Democrats' plan undoes the GOP's cuts to education, health, and job training programs and it reduces cuts to housing subsidies and community grants.

The Senate is planning to vote on both parties' proposals today, but the votes appear to be more symbolic than productive: both measures will be defeated, since 60 votes are needed in the upper chamber of Congress and neither Democrats -- with their 53-seat majority -- nor Republicans -- with their 47-seat minority -- will be able to reach that threshold.

"Everyone knows how these votes will turn out -- it's likely neither proposal will pass," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged Monday.

But he added, "These votes will show us who wants an easy applause line and who wants to strengthen our country's bottom line.

"Their shiny new budget is a lemon. It has a badly broken engine," he said of the Republicans' proposal.

Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, responded by arguing that a vote for the Democrats' plan is "a vote that says we are still in denial, a vote that says deficits don't matter, that we can continue to spend."

"What planet are they on?" he said. "Our character is tested by how we respond in times of great challenge. This week, the Senate faces such a test. How do we respond to the growing fiscal crisis facing our nation that every expert, including the debt commission, has told us is real? This is a defining vote in the career of every senator and a defining vote for the Senate. "