WASHINGTON, March 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. House and Senate have approved competing 2006 budget resolutions, but the differences are going to make finding a compromise very difficult.
While the House version of the bill approved Thursday includes a slowdown in Medicaid funding over the next five years, such cuts were removed in Senate version of the resolution before passage late Thursday night.
The Senate also approved the closure of corporate tax loopholes to fund education and protected funding for urban development grants -- cuts that, like the Medicaid cuts, were proposed by the Bush White House.
House GOP budget leaders said earlier in the week finding a compromise between the two measures could be impossible because of such differences.
The lack of a final budget resolution would void the Republican victory in winning Senate approval for opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
A deal made by House GOP leaders with party fiscal conservatives giving lawmakers the ability to raise procedural objections to spending bills that break annual budget limitations could be impacted without approval of a final budget.
