By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in Congress have privately told the White House to do more to rein in government spending and reduce the federal budget deficit -- or risk a potential backlash against some of President Bush's budget priorities, congressional aides said on Saturday.
The warning from conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives comes just days before Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday, in which, aides say, he will tout progress boosting economic growth.
Bush will send to Congress his $2.3 trillion budget for fiscal 2005 on Feb. 2. In it, he will call for limiting spending growth for most government programs to under 4 percent and for cutting the deficit in half over five years.
But a growing number of fiscal conservatives are skeptical.
They say spending under Bush is growing too fast. And rather than impose restraint on Congress, as fellow Republicans had expected, Bush has enacted costly new legislation, including a sweeping Medicare prescription drug plan, that will put additional strain on the budget.
Bush alienated fiscal conservatives further with costly election-year initiatives, including one to send manned spacecraft back to the moon and ultimately on to Mars .
In a private meeting on Friday with White House budget director Joshua Bolten, Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle and other Republican leaders in the House expressed growing concern about the current level of spending.
They also pressed for more concrete action on the deficit, which could top $500 billion this fiscal year alone.
"Not enough attention is being paid to holding the line on spending," Nussle's spokesman, Sean Spicer, said.
Nussle's message to Bolten amounted to: "If you don't show some of our concerns in your budget, we will have some problems" getting it passed, he said. "Any budget that goes through the House should restrain spending and look seriously at reducing the deficit."
Despite market volatility and pleas from his own conservative base, Bush has played down the need to propose a more concrete plan to reduce the deficit.
Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the White House budget office, said it was premature to make assumption about spending since Bush's 2005 budget has yet to be released.
He insisted Bush was committed to cutting the deficit in half over five years and to maintaining fiscal discipline.
But officials have offered no new proposals and acknowledge their deficit-reduction assumptions are predicated on a quick economic rebound and the U.S. Congress holding the line on spending.
Even some Bush advisers privately concede there is little chance of meeting the goal of cutting the deficit in half over five years unless a more concerted effort to cut spending is made. That is unlikely until after the 2004 election and they say Bush would have a freer hand to act in a second and final term.
On Bush's watch, the White House says non-military, non-homeland security discretionary spending has fallen from 15 percent to as low as 3 percent.
But the conservative Heritage Foundation disputed those estimates calculating that discretionary outlays rose 13 percent in 2002, 12 percent in 2003 and will rise 10 percent in 2004.
