Major U.S. budget reform likely on hold

WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. Congress is looking into next year's federal budget but competing versions indicate any major changes will be left to a new president and Congress.

Democrats want to allow the Bush administration tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2010 and target spending to promote growth. Republicans say the tax cuts are needed to create conditions for economic growth and it's spending that should be cut, especially soaring entitlement spending.

But, neither party has the clout to make a decisive shift in budget priorities this year, The Christian Science Monitor says. Many congressional Democrats said they expect a status quo budget with a pass to the next Congress.

U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., told the Monitor. "The budget resolution for fiscal 2009 is no grand solution" but is headed in the right direction.

The national debt stood at about $9.4 trillion -- approximately $30,000 owed for every American man, woman and child. Republicans say that the nation's unfunded liabilities in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are much larger, more like $450,000 for every U.S. family with unfunded liability of more than $50 trillion, the Monitor said.