Top Democrat announces budget agreement

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - Democrats controlling Congress are leaving grim decisions on automatic tax increases to the next president and the newly elected Congress under a freshly negotiated House-Senate blueprint for the upcoming budget year.

The fiscal 2009 budget plan worked out in private talks between House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., and his Senate counterpart, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., awards an approximately 4 percent increase on average to nondefense Cabinet budgets passed by Congress each year. But it makes no effort to rein in the rapidly rising cost of federal benefit programs such as Medicare.

Conrad told reporters Tuesday that he anticipates the nonbinding budget plan would pass both House and Senate by the end of next week. He declined to reveal key details.

On taxes, the measure assumes that many of President Bush's tax cuts expire as scheduled at the end of 2010, and relies on the resulting influx of tax revenues to produce a small budget surplus in four years.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080513/ap_on_go_co/congress_budget;_

[Elspeth]

1. "leaving grim decisions on automatic tax increases to the next president ..."

"..leaving grim decisions on automatic tax increases to the next president and the newly elected Congress."

Yup.

Obama's gonna be in the path of an oncoming train if he beats McCain.

Crap.

[pattmarty]

2. I think we all know that, just by looking back over the last 8 yrs.

It ain't gonna be easy, even with large Dem majorities in both Houses.

[Elspeth]

3. The shortsighted American electorate will blame Obama and the Dems

because they can't hold information from the previous 8 years in their head. Rush and his ilk can be depended upon to repeat the meme that this is what happens when the Dems hold office. There might even be some subtle racialization of that comment vis a vis Obama.