GOP lawmakers plan cuts in Bush budget

Congressional Republicans, in an extraordinary break with the White House in an election year, say President Bush’s 2005 budget proposal “doesn’t go far enough” to restrain government spending and are considering pursuing further cuts in outlays.

Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa, chairman of the House Budget Committee, yesterday said Republicans and the White House should even be willing to trim wasteful spending in the Defense and Homeland Security departments.

“We also have to look at defense and homeland security,” Mr. Nussle said, referring to Mr. Bush’s effort in his $2.4 trillion proposed budget to eliminate or scale-back inefficient or wasteful federal programs. “My bet is that there is some [waste] going on.”

Also in the sights of some congressional Republicans is last year’s prescription-drug benefit, which the president’s budget team now says will cost $140 billion more than first estimated, angering the party’s base at a time when Mr. Bush’s approval rating is slipping.

The president is now suffering the lowest job approval rating of his presidency as measured by the Gallup poll, at 49 percent, down from 63 percent just after the capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

“Our party’s credibility on spending is slipping. We need to get that credibility back,” said Rep. Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican.

Rep. Sue Myrick, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the conservative House Republican Study Committee, said a bloc of about 90 House Republicans, both conservatives and moderate “deficit hawks,” want to cut or freeze a number of discretionary spending programs beyond the reductions proposed in the president’s plan.

“I think we need to do a little more,” than what Mr. Bush proposed, said Mrs. Myrick — who backs an outright freeze or a reduction of all discretionary spending.

“We’re saying his budget does some good things but still leaves total spending too high and won’t satisfy the conservative base — the people back home we’re hearing from,” Mrs. Myrick said. “People back home are very upset with spending.”

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, said that the theme of controlling government spending was the “real thrust of the conversation” at the House and Senate Republican retreat last weekend.

The Bush budget would boost defense spending by 7 percent and homeland-security spending by 10 percent, but hold all other domestic discretionary spending to a $2 billion net increase, which comes out to a growth rate of less than 0.5 percent over last year.

According to Mr. Ryan, this is “a few steps in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough to limit discretionary spending.”

Mr. Nussle said he hopes the administration will be willing to take a look at homeland security and defense for waste and to “find savings.”

“We shouldn’t be wasting one penny. We’re going to look in every nook and cranny,” he said.

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