Republicans hail Congress budget plan

The US Congress has approved a budget plan that includes a measure designed to help the Republican-controlled legislature push to repeal President Barack Obama's signature health insurance legislation.

The Senate on Tuesday passed the resolution in a 51-48 vote that followed approval in the House of Representatives last week. The largely symbolic document provides a blueprint for the US to balance the budget within a decade through $5.3bn in cuts that assume the scrapping of "Obamacare".

Republicans hailed the first bicameral budget in six years as evidence that the GOP was using the majority it obtained in both chambers of Congress in November to govern responsibly. The only Republicans to oppose the measure were Ted Cruz and Rand Paul - two presidential contenders who said the plan did not go far enough to streamline government spending.

Mike Enzi, the Republican chairman of the Senate finance committee, said on Twitter that "Congress just passed the first 10-year budget since Harry Potter debuted on the big screen". John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, added that the result was a "big win for the American people and a fulfilment of our promise to govern responsibly".

Despite the fanfare, the non-binding measure faces a steep climb in terms of bring translated into actual cuts as the appropriations committees meet over the coming weeks to craft spending bills. Critics have pointed out that the $5.3bn in cuts includes more than $1bn related to repealing Obamacare even though the president would veto any such bill that crossed his desk.

What the budget does, however, is pave the way for Congress to use a tool called "reconciliation" that would prevent Democrats from using filibusters - procedural blocking tactics that can only be overcome with 60 votes, a high threshold since the GOP has only 54 seats in the 100-seat chamber.

The reconciliation measure would make it easier for the GOP to pass a bill to overturn Obamacare, a move that would please many Republican voters ahead of the 2016 election even if such efforts were ultimately symbolic.

Republicans oppose Obamacare because it mandates that people must have health insurance and also provides a bigger government role than they would like through the provision of subsidies towards premiums.

Despite the fact that the budget proposal has little chance of becoming reality, Democrats castigated the measure, which they said would benefit wealthy Americans while targeting health and welfare programmes that would have a disproportionate impact on poorer Americans.

The White House said the budget would end up "underfunding investments that benefit middle-class families and contribute to economic growth, stripping away health insurance coverage from millions, making it harder for students to afford college, and funding national defence through a temporary budget gimmick - while short-changing it altogether in later years".

Ahead of the vote, Bernie Sanders, an independent senator who is the ranking member on the Senate budget committee, said the Republican plan would move the US in "exactly the wrong direction".

"At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, it gives huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, while making devastating cuts to education, Medicare, affordable housing, prescription drug coverage, and many other vital investments for the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor," said Mr Sanders, who is challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Twitter: @DimiSevastopulo

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