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House Leader May Delay Budget Vote
WASHINGTON - As negotiators toil in attempts to seal agreement on a sweeping budget cut bill, the second-ranking Republican in the House acknowledged Tuesday that it's possible the matter may be kicked over into new year.
House Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he'd rather wait until next year to wrap up the budget bill if completing it this year would mean making too many concessions to the Senate, which passed a significantly milder version of the bill than the House last month.
Asked if it was essential to wrap up the budget cut bill, Blunt said: "Not so essential that we'd have to give up our negotiating position on a number of issues. I think it's better to get that right than to get that quickly."
The House passed a bill trimming $50 billion over five years from myriad federal programs including Medicaid, food stamps, student loan subsidies, and farm subsidies. The Senate's $35 billion version made milder cuts to Medicaid and found savings from the Medicare program as well.
Lobbyists and staff aides said talks so far had tilted in the Senate's direction on several issues. House-passed cuts to food stamps are likely to be dropped as is a House plan to overhaul welfare to require more stringent work requirements for recipients.
Meanwhile, the Senate is pressing hard to use the filibuster-proof budget bill to carry a plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, but Blunt said "it's clearly something that's very difficult for us to do" as part of the budget in light of vows by House GOP opponents of drilling to block any broader budget plan permitting drilling in ANWR.