Harry Reid: ‘I am opposed to more short-term’ budget proposals

By Karoun Demirjian

Tuesday, March 8, 2011 | 12:21 p.m.

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seems anxious about Senate Republicans delaying a vote on the two budget proposals circulating in Congress, it's for good reason: He doesn't want to see the debate go past March 18.

"I personally am opposed to more short-term" budget proposals, Reid said Tuesday after a weekly lunch meeting of Senate Democrats. "Long-term is becoming short-term, we're down to about six months here."

The Senate was supposed to consider two budgets today for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year: H.R. 1, which the House passed last month, and cuts $100 billion from the president's initial annual request (or $57 billion from present spending levels); and a proposal from the White House that slices $51 billion off the initial annual request (or about $5 billion from current spending levels).

That still leaves Republicans and Democrats about $50 billion apart -- a fact that's clouding negotiations.

Neither bill is expected to pass, but that's not the point, Reid said.

"We want the American people to know that H.R. 1 is dead," Reid said, calling the House's bill "extreme" and a "desperate" measure "to satisfy this really narrow base that they have, that they're willing to sacrifice American jobs for."

He's referring to the Tea Party, whose member representatives have been promising since before the midterm elections to come to Washington and slash $100 billion from the federal budget.

Their message does seem to have gripped the Republican party, even if many members take issue with how the cuts are being made.

Senate Republicans were quick to try to deflect critiques that they were delaying things Tuesday, promising that the votes would come up in the "next day or so."

"We're going to express our support for that number," said Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander, explaining that he expected Senate Republicans to vote for the bill. "But we're going to reserve our right to set our own priorities within that."

That straddling act, however, has clearly frustrated Reid.

"We have to get off the numbers game," he said. "I've said the $51 billion is a step forward, and we need to do more ... but H.R. 1 is a destructive piece of legislation ... there are other places we can move to bring about savings."

Reid identified commodities prices and farm subsidies -- which he said are at their highest point ever -- as potential places to draw down government costs. He also identified offshore oil subsidies as a place where there were substantial funds to be saved, and domestic discretionary defense spending as areas where Democrats might propose additional cuts around a negotiating table.

But if Reid is serious about his timetable -- that there's no more time for short-term continuing resolutions, such as the House is proposing -- then they don't have much time to iron out such differences.

House Republicans said today they were preparing a month-long budget stopgap measure with deeper cuts than the $4 billion that appeared as part of the two-week patch measure that is currently funding the government through March 18.

That's an apparent role reversal. It was Reid, late last month, who wanted to buy Congress a month of time to negotiate, while Republicans insisted on no more than two weeks.

Those negotiations have not actually begun. While Reid says he is in touch with the White House on a daily basis over budget matters, the leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress haven't met with the administration since last Thursday, when they agreed that the two Senate votes would kick-start the negotiating process.

Reid said Tuesday he wouldn't wait for Republicans.

"They cannot stop us from bringing up a vote on H.R. 1," he said -- that's because Reid already filed the procedural motion that will allow him to bring up the measure for a filibuster-proof vote either tonight or Wednesday morning.