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  • Says Congressman Tim Walz, "The president is unwilling to negotiate."

    Tim Walz

December 12, 2007

Budget deadlock frustrates Walz

Mark Fischenich

The federal budget impasse can be boiled down to simple numbers.

President Bush is OK with $933 billion for the part of the federal budget known as discretionary spending, and Democrats who control the Congress were $22 billion above that figure with their proposed budgets.

Then, the Democrats split the difference and proposed budgets that would have left discretionary spending at $944 billion. The White House issued a veto threat.

On Tuesday, Congressman Tim Walz said it’s starting to look like only one number will ultimately be allowed to become law: Bush’s number.

“I think that’s a real possibility that that’s what’s going to happen,” said Walz, DFL-Mankato.

If so, there’s likely to be a real impact on portions of the budget important to Minnesotans, according to Walz. Funding for heating assistance, Head Start, medical research and biofuels research are all at stake in the budget battle.

A freshman, Walz is going through the federal budgeting process for the first time and said his patience is being tested.

“The president is unwilling to negotiate,” said Walz, DFL-Mankato. “... The president says, ‘No, it’s my way or no way.’”

The White House position has been firm for some time — spending must be held to the president’s number and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must be fully funded without Democratic strings attached about when troops will be brought home.

A White House spokesman said the administration’s position had not changed as of Tuesday. “... Hold government spending to the president’s reasonable and responsible levels and fully fund our troops in the field,” said White House budget office spokesman Sean Kevelighan.

Walz said the nation’s government was established under the concept that Congress and the president would serve as checks on the other’s power but also on the belief that they would negotiate in good faith.

“I think there was some sense in the founders that there would be some reasonableness in the people who hold these offices,” he said.

For Bush to be so insistent on restraining spending seems suspicious to Walz, who suggested Republicans are trying to discredit the Democratic Congress leading up to next year’s election. The national debt skyrocketed during Bush’s presidency, and only now — when the House is under Democratic control for the first time since 1994 — is the president vetoing budgets.

The top Republican in the House, Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, made one step toward compromise Tuesday, endorsing more than $6 billion in new spending. Boehner said spending above Bush’s target was appropriate for border security, foreign aid, heating assistance, the replacement of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis and several other areas.

But Boehner was mostly critical of the Democratic budget and promised to persist in fighting it.



— The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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