Congress spends a good chunk of its year on Capitol Hill slogging through the 9-month process of creating and passing a budget. The president kicks off the marathon with a budget proposal in early February and - on the rarest of years - a final budget is passed by October 1 when the fiscal year begins (more often, the process gets dragged out to December - or Congress gives up on the effort entirely).

For 2009's budget, hill watchers are already predicting that we may not see a budget until next January, when the Democratic leadership in Congress hopes to have a president that will sign off on its spending ideas. Their ability to do so means they have just about zero incentive to negotiate with President Bush to compromise on budget priorities. For that reason, this year citizenJoe doesn't even bother parsing out the president's proposed budget (but you can read up on the dailies' reporting).

The House and Senate revealed their first budget drafts - the "budget resolution" - in March, which they may vote on the week of March 10. The budget resolution is used as a blue print for the budget committees who write up the details of final spending bills.

Congress' budget resolution

The Senate's version of the budget resolution would (WP):

• cost about $18 billion more than the president's proposed budget;
• start with a $350 billion deficit in '09, but work down to a surplus in '13 - but at the same time the budget assumes that the Bush tax cuts would end in '10 (which is very unlikely) and that we'd only spend $70 billion more on the Iraq war (a snowball's chance)
• add an extra $35 billion for a second stimulus plan, extending unemployment benefits and expanding food stamps
• add $13 billion in tax cuts and $3 billion in funding for alternative energy
• add $13 billion in education tax cuts

The House version's is similar to the Senate's, though it's $4 billion more expensive and it also includes getting rid of the Alternative Minimum Tax - which it would pay for by raising funds through the budget "reconciliation" process. (WP)

Updated March 8, 2008