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Republicans courting Nelson to support budget
BY JAKE THOMPSON
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU
WASHINGTON - Once again, Republicans prowling for a key vote to pass a budget and protect three popular tax cuts are wooing a conservative Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson.
And once again, the Nebraskan is listening - even as he demands restrictions on future spending and limits on any future tax cuts in exchange for his vote.
Nelson is one of several senators being courted. His vote could be crucial because several moderate Republicans in the narrowly divided Senate are expected to oppose the budget plan, which could be completed next week.
Nelson played a similar role in 2001 and 2003. As one of only a half-dozen centrists in the Senate, he has helped President Bush win major tax cuts.
The Senate is laboring to pass a GOP-written $2.4 trillion budget for next year that now contains a compromise restricting future spending and tax cuts for one year. Still to come would be individual appropriations bills detailing exact spending in each area.
Last month, the Senate passed a budget with pay-as-you-go restrictions, requiring that future tax cuts and new spending be offset with other spending cuts for the next five years.
Nelson voted for the five-year restrictions. But he then voted against the Senate budget bill because it called for cuts in education, emergency first responders, veterans benefits and agriculture, a Nelson aide said Wednesday.
The GOP-run House didn't include pay-as-you-go restrictions in its budget. The White House doesn't like the restrictions either, but it might accept them if they apply only to new spending such as the Medicare bill approved last year.
Now the House and Senate are trying to fashion a compromise budget that both can pass. That's why Nelson is being courted. He said he might switch his vote and back the final compromise budget under certain conditions.
First, the budget restrictions must be imposed on the entire federal budget for several years. Without such limits, Nelson said, "It'll be a whirling dervish around here and we'll have no budget."
Second, Nelson wants assurances that the final budget would keep several billion dollars that the House budget proposes cutting next year from farm programs and Medicaid, both of which Nelson considers important to Nebraska and other farm states. Nelson said he would prefer changes in other areas such as closing tax loopholes.
Third, he is willing to exempt from the restrictions three tax cuts set to expire next year: expansion of the 10 percent income tax bracket that affects all American taxpayers, a child tax credit of $1,000 per child set to fall back to $600, and flattening of the so-called marriage penalty tax that affects millions of married taxpayers.
Exempting them from the budget - at a cost of $95 billion - would boost the nearly $500 billion federal deficit, Nelson acknowledged. Many in Congress, though, want to make the cuts permanent and they are expected to pass easily, he noted.
What is the point of even voting in the senate race?x(
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