The Senate approved funding yesterday for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program in a 68-31 vote to accept a second-degree amendment offered by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The amendment provides an additional $1 billion for LIHEAP for this fiscal year, disbursing half of it through both LIHEAP's traditional funding formula and a contingency fund to be released at the discretion of the White House. The focus is now on the House, where a number of conservative members have argued that the added LIHEAP funding this year is not paid for.

Secretary of the Treasury John Snow sent a letter to Congress Monday saying he has taken "all prudent and legal actions” to stay under the $8.184 trillion debt limit and again strongly urged passage of an increase “immediately." Congress, which must act or else they could default on payments to bond holders or fail to make other scheduled government payments, will most likely pass a debt limit increase. This will mark the fourth time the debt limit has needed to be increased under President Bush. If this new hike is approved, the limit will have jumped by $3 trillion since he took office.

The Congressional Budget Office has completed a preliminary analysis of the President's FY07 Budget.

• Analysis
• Supplemental Data

The report found that the President's proposal will:

• Spend about $925 billion on discretionary programs in FY07;
• Add $35 billion to the CBO's current deficit projections, putting the deficit projection at $371 billion;
• Reduce revenues by nearly $9 billion for FY07;
• Reduce revenues by $282 billion from 2007-2011 if some of the President's expiring 2001 and 2003 tax provisions are extended;

Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee Judd Gregg (R-NH) criticized the President's budget plan yesterday, calling the White House budget practices "irresponsible" and "unrealistic." In an interview with CongressDaily Gregg said Bush has supported massive increases for defense, and has augmented those increases with emergency funding that does not fit within budget caps.