Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) provided reporters with some details yesterday about the budget resolution draft that his committee will mark up today and tomorrow. Some features are good news:

• priorities -- Conrad's draft provides a $16-18 billion increase in domestic appropriations over Bush's proposal for FY 2008, with substantial increases in education, veterans, and community policing programs, and, on the mandatory spending side, $50 billion for SCHIP over the next five years

Administration projections that its FY 2008 federal budget proposal would yield a surplus by FY 2012 were contradicted today by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring of the President's plan. The bottom lines:

• the Bush budget will fail to balance in 2012 by $9 billion (see Table 1); CBO's estimate projects $119 billion less in revenues in 2012 than does OMB's
• domestic discretionary spending for FY 2008 is scored at $932 billion (Table 4), up from the President's proposed $928.9 cap

Coming to a chamber floor near you! CQ($): The House Appropriations Committee has set a "target date" of March 7 to mark up the fiscal 2007 supplemental measure, Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., the committee chairman, said Wednesday. The goal is to bring the bill to the floor the following week. The Senate Appropriations Committee intends to mark up its own version of the bill March 20, according to its chairman, Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he would like to have the bill on the floor the last week of March. Last week of March - mark your calendars.