Senate approval is all that is needed for final adoption of a $1.17 trillion federal budget for 1990 whose defenders point not to what it does now, but to what it avoids and what it portends.
The House passed the spending plan on Wednesday by a 241-185 margin, with a majority of Democrats and Republicans voting in support. The Senate planned to approve the measure Thursday.The bipartisan endorsement was predictable because the package reflects a $28 billion deficit-reduction deal the Bush administration and congressional leaders reached last month.
But though support was wide, it was not deep. Critics have said the budget's claim to cut the deficit to $99.7 billion is based on rosy economic assumptions that make the shortfall appear less serious, gimmicks like moving the money-losing Postal Service "off budget," and one-time infusions of money from auctioning federal loan portfolios.
One lawmaker, Rep. Frederick Upton, R-Mich., referred to the plan as a "silhouette in silliness."
But defenders argued that the package avoids legislative gridlock between President Bush and his "no new taxes" pledge and the Democrats who control Congress and their reluctance to slash domestic programs.
They also said it lays groundwork for legislative-executive cooperation for fiscal 1991, when the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law requires a shortfall of no more than $64 billion.
"The choice here is whether we take a first step or no step at all," said House Budget Committee Chairman Leon Panetta, D-Calif.
On the spending side, the plan bolsters domestic spending at the expense of the Pentagon. Defense spending would increase to $299.2 billion, $4.2 billion short of what would be needed to counter the costs of inflation.
Domestic programs, as a whole, would be allowed to grow by about $4 billion above the rate of inflation.
Education, space, science, law enforcement, health and low-income assistance programs would be given enough money to expand over last year.