With Congress heading into a politically perilous budget season, influential House conservatives plan this week to propose an austere alternative spending plan that would pare more than $650 billion over five years, balance the budget and drastically shrink three cabinet agencies.

The legislation, part of a push by some Republicans to re-establish themselves as champions of fiscal restraint, was taking shape as President Bush struck a similar theme on Monday by asking Congress to grant him line-item veto power to eliminate federal spending that he might judge wasteful

...

Under the proposal, expected to be introduced by Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, and Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, military spending would continue to rise, administration tax cuts would be protected and Social Security would be spared. But many other programs and foreign aid would be greatly scaled back.

The authors of the proposal describe it as a sequel to the Contract With America, which helped catapult Republicans to power in 1994. An outline of the plan says the proposals require "tough choices, but members have expressed a serious desire to do the hard things to save America.

It will take a miracle to get it passed, but here's hoping.

(h/t to the lovely Mary Katherine Ham)

Posted by Ryan S. on Wednesday, March 08, 2006 at 9:17 AM | Permalink |