Face-Off Imminent as President Clinton Sends Eighth and Final Budget to Congress
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In some ways, it is a final chapter of the Clinton presidency. Just two hours ago, the administration released its eighth and final budget report. For a closer look at the proposals and what they could mean to you, live to Capitol Hill and CNN's Jeanne Meserve for more on this. Jeanne, good morning.</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill. It's ready, set, go: The face-off between the Congress and the White House over the budget is just about to begin. The budget documents arrived here on Capitol Hill this morning, and as they did, House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich characterized it as a fantasy budget, a laundry list for special interest groups. The budget has a price tag of about $1.8 trillion. That's close to a four percent increase over last year. It projects a non-Social Security surplus of about $750 billion over the next 10 years, and here are some of its specific provisions: $350 billion in tax cuts, $110 billion for health care, $30 billion for tuition tax credits, $112 billion additional dollars for defense. Senate Budget Committee chairman, Republican Pete Domenici, appeared on CNN this morning and called it an election year budget of the highest order.</s>SEN. PETE DOMENICI (R), BUDGET CHAIRMAN: It is a budget that's on autopilot in terms of all the programs of our country for 10 years. They're growing at the rate of inflation automatically. And then there's about $340 billion in new programs. And the more you look at it, the more you wonder, Is this an overt, conscious effort to put so many spending programs on the line that there will be nothing left of any significance to give back to the American taxpayers even when you have the largest surplus in the history of America?</s>MESERVE: But Jack Lew, the White House budget director, defends the budget as reasonable.</s>JACK LEW, WHITE HOUSE BUDGET DIRECTOR: Spending in this year's budget is the smallest as a percentage of the economy since 1966. It's gone down every year that President Clinton has been in office, and it continues to go down over the projection of the next 10 years. We think that combined with the real record of debt reduction -- we paid down debt in 1998, we paid down debt in 1999 and this year. We're doing the job, we're sticking to the course that we're on, which is fiscal discipline, and it's balanced with investments in our priorities in the future.</s>MESERVE: Republicans on Capitol Hill are indicating this morning that they will be concentrating on holding down the spending in this budget. They say there are 50 new spending initiatives which they say would, in essence, spend away the budget surplus. Look for the Republicans also to do a lot of talking about tax fairness, something they say this budget does not include. One area where there is likely to be compromise: a new Medicare benefit to cover prescription drugs, their disagreement about the size and the scope of that, but look for a compromise in that area. Jeanne Meserve, CNN, reporting live from Capitol Hill.</s>HEMMER: Jeanne, thanks for the preview there. Expecting the president to formally announce his budget plans about 10:15 a.m. Eastern, about 11 minutes from now. We'll have it live for you when it happens live in Washington.