Conrad announces budget markup for Wednesday

The Senate Budget Committee on Monday moved to take up a budget for fiscal 2013, renewing pressure from Republicans to bring the resolution up for a floor vote.

The budget panel announced it would hold a markup of the budget on Wednesday, even though Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has said a budget proposal for 2013 is unnecessary because the debt-limit law passed in August sets the discretionary spending limit at $1.047 trillion.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he has no intention of bringing a budget resolution to the floor, arguing there is no reason to consider a plan. 

A vote on a budget proposal would be a political risk for Senate Democrats, because it would bring a “vote-a-rama” on amendments that would likely split the party on key issues. To avoid those votes, Democrats would have to vote against their own budget and prevent the GOP from amassing a majority.

Budget panel ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Monday renewed the pressure on Conrad and Democratic leaders to hold a vote, arguing that they haven't moved a budget through the upper chamber since April 29, 2009. 

"Senate Democrats are unable to translate their rhetoric into a plan that they can publicly defend and unite behind," Sessions said in a statement.

"I am glad that the chairman is moving forward with this mandatory process despite the apparent wishes of his leadership," he said, praising Conrad.

"But the great question before us now is whether Majority Leader Reid will reverse his unconscionable stance that no budget — even his chairman’s — should receive consideration on the Senate floor."

Sessions said not bringing the budget to the floor make the process less transparent. 

"If that stance does not change, then the whole purpose of the mark-up is undermined and the American people will have been denied the open, public process they deserve," he said. 

Less than two days ahead of the markup, Senate Republicans say they haven't received a budget document to examine. 

Conrad appears unmoved by the GOP's insistence that the budget come up for a floor vote.

In an appearance on Fox News Sunday on April 8, Conrad said Reid made the judgment to not bring a budget to the floor "quite correctly" because there is very little chance of the two sides — Republicans and Democrats — getting together to approve a budget before the election.

"It's very clear that it stands in place of a budget resolution and in many ways it is stronger than the budget resolution," said Conrad, who is retiring from Congress next year. He said the debt-limit deal from last summer set discretionary spending levels not just for next year, but for the next 10 years.

He also has pushed back against the argument that Congress has not produced a budget in the past three years.

"This notion that we've not had a budget for three years is just wrong," he said.

He said it would be unlikely that the two chambers could reach a compromise on spending before November, so a vote on a budget plan his panel would approve "won't happen with a vote on Senate floor before the election."

The House approved the GOP budget plan drawn up by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last month before leaving for the two-week recess. 

That budget blueprint lowers the discretionary spending cap down to $1.028 trillion, a move derided by House and Senate Democrats as a breach of the debt-limit agreement.

Under regular order, the House and Senate approve budget plans and aim to compromise on a discretionary spending number so they can set their appropriations subcommittees to work on the finer details. The president does not sign a budget resolution.