Clerical Errors Hamper Republican Effort to Finalize Budget
DARYN KAGAN CNN ANCHOR: On Capitol Hill the Republican effort to wrap up the federal budget was derailed by two pieces of paper. Joining us now for the latest on the budget vote and where it stands and where it stands and where those mystery papers are, our congressional correspondent,Kate Snow -- Kate.</s>KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, it's been a bit of a confusing morning here on Capitol Hill, but guess what? I have two of the key pages in my hand, now. I need to explain a little bit, though. These of course aren't the actual missing pages per se. They are pages 48 and 49 that were originally in the budget. They were probably, possibly, I should say, being reworked last night. That may be why they were missing. Although there's some question right now about why they were missing. Some say they were missing because the photo copier got jammed. Other explanations are that they were being reworked. I can tell you though, for sure, that page 48 here at the top mentions the tax cut. It says $1.25 trillion for the period of years 2001 through 2011. It also talks about what they're calling an upfront stimulus for the economy of $100 billion. Why does this matter? Well, it's a pretty critical page, and the fact that they didn't have this when they started debating last night, which was after midnight last night, when the House convened to talk about this budget was what put a stop to the whole process. They started talking about it about midnight. Around 2:00 in the morning they decided that they would have to simply go out of session and come back next week. Now they were telling us that they were hoping to vote on Tuesday. I can tell you that now, they're talking about maybe voting in the House and the Senate on Wednesday, maybe even on Thursday just because of some of these clerical delays. Last night or I should say early this morning there were a lot of fireworks over these couple of pages that were missing in the House. House Democrats not at all happy about the process.</s>REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Nothing about today has struck me as being remotely legitimate, except that it is the day in which incompetence came to the rescue of democracy. We will all remember that.</s>SNOW: And what does this mean to the actual budget? Not maybe a whole lot. If these pages, once the pages are found, and everything is put back together, the budget will be about 2 inches thick. It contains all kinds of spending priorities for the federal government for the next fiscal year. It also does contain that tax cut outline. That will guide them as they then, Daryn, try to figure out exactly what the tax cut will look like. They are still hoping to try to get a tax cut out of this Congress by Memorial Day. Daryn, back to you.</s>KAGAN: Kate Snow on Capitol Hill. Thank you. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com