As the Senate approved a measure with $60 billion in tax cuts, the House will consider its own measure containing $56.6 billion in cuts. Both plans are spread over the next five years.
Most of the House's cuts will come from expanding President Bush's tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, which are set to expire in 2008. The Senate's bill took its cuts from granting a one-year reprieve to households on the verge of being hit by the alternative minimum tax, and doesn't extend the president's breaks.
The House also narrowly approved $50 billion in spending cuts, mostly by trimming benefit programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps. The tax and budget measures are central to the president's effort to cut the federal deficit in half by 2009 and encourage economic growth.
The Senate already passed a very different deficit-reduction bill and approved its own $60 billion in tax cuts. The bill doesn't include an extension of President Bush's tax cuts, which are set to expire in 2008, but does offer a one-year reprieve for families scheduled to be hit by the alternative minimum tax and includes a $5 billion tax next year for the nation's biggest oil companies.
