Late on March 13 and early in the morning of March 14, the House and Senate adopted $3 trillion budget resolutions for Fiscal Year 2009 by votes of 212-207 and 51-44, respectively. While the resolutions are similar in terms of broad policy outlines and priorities, they differ on a few major points, including the total amount of discretionary spending and whether to offset the cost of a one-year patch to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

The congressional budget resolution is a non-binding blueprint for the direction of budget policy over the next five fiscal years and sets the overall amount of money the twelve appropriations subcommittees will have to allocate to individual programs under their jurisdiction in each chamber. Before a final version is passed by Congress, the Democratic leadership will need to reconcile the differences between the two versions. Foremost among these are overall FY 2009 discretionary spending levels, where the chambers are about $4 billion apart, and plans to "patch" the AMT for next year, which the House does with instructions to provide offsets, while the Senate provides no offsets in violation of pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules. These and the numerous other differences will need to be worked out in conference committee, which will convene soon after Congress returns from its two-week recess on March 31.

In the end, 16 Democrats in the House crossed party lines to oppose the resolution, but it still passed with a five-vote margin. In the Senate, the vote on the resolution was party-line, except for Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), who voted against it, and Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Susan Collins (R), who voted in favor.

The House resolution adds $21.8 billion in discretionary funding over and above the president's top line; the Senate resolution adds $18 billion. While the House includes $4 billion in additional discretionary spending, both the House and Senate budget resolutions reverse the deep cuts proposed by President Bush in February to such programs as Medicare and Medicaid, a community policing program, low-income energy assistance, the Social Services and Community Development Block Grant programs, Amtrak, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In all, S. Con. Res. 70, the Senate budget resolution, was amended 18 times during the course of an all-day "vote-a-rama" that featured a total of 42 roll call votes. The first and most far-reaching amendment was offered by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and adopted by a vote of 99-1. The Baucus amendment calls for spending the resolution's projected budget surpluses in 2012 and 2013 on "middle-class" tax cuts, keeping the lowest income tax rate at 10 percent and the $1,000 child credit and preserving the estate tax at the 2009 rate and exclusion level, indexed for inflation.

The Senate voted on five amendments seeking to cut the estate tax, all of which failed. The closest vote came on an amendment by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) raising the estate tax exemption to $10 million per-couple, with a top rate of 35 percent — at a 10-year revenue cost of about $750 billion. The Kyl amendment was technically defeated in a 50-50 tie, on a nearly party-line vote (Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) voted with the GOP). If Vice President Cheney had been in the presiding officer's chair at the time and voted, the amendment would probably have been adopted.

The voting generally followed a pattern in which Republicans offered amendments to create new deficit-financed and regressive tax breaks, which were voted down, but paired with or followed by amendments by Democrats proposing tax breaks that were similar but offset — several of which were adopted.

The House adopted its own version of the budget resolution, H. Con. Res. 312, after rejecting three alternatives. The Republican's version lost by a vote of 157-263, including being opposed by 38 Republican members. The GOP substitute budget plan sought to reduce mandatory spending by $412.4 billion over five years. The Progressive Caucus budget lost 98-322; the Black Caucus bill was rejected 126-292. There were no votes on amendments to H. Con. Res. 312, so it was passed by the full House unchanged from the version reported out of the House Budget Committee.

Looking ahead to conference, both sides have expressed optimism that a compromise on a resolution is achievable. The biggest sticking point in the negotiations will be whether or not to offset the revenue loss from a one-year patch of the AMT, estimated at $70 billion. Senate Democrats say a paid-for patch will never fly in their chamber, as they were unable to generate anywhere near the support to pass an offset patch in 2007. Fiscally conservative Democrats in the House are insistent that instructions in the budget resolution to develop a proposal for a revenue-neutral patch be retained. When this fight was fought in December 2007, the Senate prevailed. There is little reason to expect a different outcome this time, certainly not at the expense of an ultimate agreement on a budget resolution for FY 2009. Yet given the chance than Congress will wait to enact appropriations bills until a new administration is in place in the White House in 2009, House leaders may decide sticking to their fiscally responsible "guns" may be more important than finding agreement with the Senate on a final budget resolution.