Analyst: Bush Plan Saves Less on Medicaid

Analyst: Bush Plan Saves Less on Medicaid

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer March 3, 2005

WASHINGTON - Congress' top budget analyst estimates that President Bush's plans to slow spending for Medicaid and other benefits would save less money than the White House estimates, The Associated Press has learned.

According to preliminary estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Bush's proposals for trimming farm, veterans, student loans and other benefits would save $50.8 billion over the next five years. That's $11.1 billion, or 18 percent, less than the $62 billion in savings the White House estimated when Bush released his new budget last month.

The re-estimate could complicate the Republican-run Congress' job of writing its own budget beginning next week. That is because it means budget writers will have to find even more savings than Bush proposed to achieve the same amount of deficit reduction he claims _ a task many lawmakers will find painful.

Differing budget projections by congressional and White House forecasters are common because of differing assumptions about programs' spending rates, the economy and other factors. The $11 billion discrepancy is less than 0.2 percent of the $7.7 trillion those programs are projected to spend over the next five years.

"I don't look at that as a big impact," House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, said of the new figures.

Even so, as Nussle and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., began privately circulating details of their fiscal blueprints to colleagues this week, they have run into resistance from lawmakers protecting favorite programs. The budgets are expected to follow closely many of Bush's proposals for savings from Medicaid and other benefits.

"Some of them won't be in there. You can't do the impossible," Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said when asked about some of the energy savings Bush has proposed.

House Republicans met privately Thursday to discuss the budget. Many in the GOP say they want to control spending tightly this year, but there is always tension between deficit reduction and targeting specific programs for cuts.

"Some were concerned about areas where they have an interest in, and I think we're sensitive to that," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

The House and Senate budgets will also propose at least the $106 billion in five-year tax cuts that Bush proposed, Republicans have said.

They are also expected to include money for the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan next year _ perhaps about $50 billion. Bush left that money out of his budget.

GOP leaders and many lawmakers are adamant about at least matching Bush's goal of halving last year's projected $521 billion deficit by 2009.

Congress' budget sets overall revenue and spending limits, leaving final decisions on how taxes and expenditures will be changed for later legislation. The two chambers will have to approve a compromise budget for it to take effect, though the president's signature is not needed.

For the first time since 1997, this year's congressional budget will go one step further _ directing Congress' committees to find savings in many benefit programs. Similar efforts by Nussle have gone nowhere because of resistance by lawmakers to cuts.

In one measure of the reception some of Bush's proposals have gotten, Nussle said his budget won't require House committees to decide on details of Medicaid savings until September.

While Bush estimated that his plans for Medicaid would save $13 billion through 2010, Congress' budget office estimated that Bush's plans would save just $8.5 billion.

The administration and the nation's governors have been unable to strike a compromise on culling savings from the federal-state health-care program for the poor and disabled. The governors are reluctant to swallow cuts in federal aid for the programs, which has become a huge drain on state budgets.

"It was right to force this" by requiring Medicaid savings, Nussle said.

Source: Associated Press

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Last Updated on 03/04/05 webmaster@namiscc.org

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