By Paul M. Krawzak, CQ Staff

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad said Thursday he is further delaying consideration of a fiscal 2012 budget resolution because any spending and tax blueprint for this year is likely to be swept up in broader deficit reduction talks surrounding the debt limit.

The announcement comes more than a month after the traditional April 15 deadline for Congress to adopt a budget and following growing criticism of the delay from Senate Republicans. The House passed its fiscal 2012 budget (H Con Res 34) last month and it is expected to come to a vote in the Senate next week.

“Democrats on the Budget Committee are very close to an agreement,” Conrad said in a written statement. “We will have a budget. But, after broad consultation, we have decided to defer a budget markup because of the high-level bipartisan leadership negotiations that are currently underway.”

The North Dakota Democrat said any proposals that emerge from bipartisan debt-reduction talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “may need to be included in a budget resolution that would be offered in the weeks ahead.”

Congress faces a late-summer vote to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit, and Republicans are demanding major spending cutbacks in exchange for any vote to raise the cap. Many Democrats also want some spending constraints, along with increased taxes to help reduce the government’s budget deficit.

Treasury Department officials say the nation could default on its debt obligations if the debt limit is not raised by Aug. 2.

As precedent, Conrad pointed to budget agreements that were reached in 1990 under President George Bush and 1997 under President Bill Clinton where a budget resolution and reconciliation legislation were used to implement the agreements.

Jeff Sessions of Alabama, ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, said Democrats are “desperately trying to avoid having to present a budget to the American people. They know that the big spenders in their caucus prevent them from bringing forward a credible plan that both their party and the country can support.”

Redrafted Plan

In recent weeks, Conrad was forced to rework an earlier budget plan aimed at reducing the deficit by $4 trillion over a decade after Vermont independent Bernard Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, charged that it favored the rich and threatened to block its approval in committee.

Conrad rewrote the plan, generating more deficit reduction through tax increases and less through cuts to government programs.

Reacting to Conrad’s announcement, Sanders reiterated his insistence that he would not support any budget unless it requires the wealthiest Americans “to pay their fair share of taxes, and unless we do away with loopholes and tax breaks which enable companies making billions of dollars in profits to evade paying any taxes at all.”

He continued to shape his proposal after conversations with Democratic senators, aiming to produce a plan that would be acceptable to Sanders and other liberals as well as moderates like Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who is opposed to any tax increases in the budget.

Conrad Delays Budget Markup in Deference to Ongoing Debt Talks

Sessions has issued a steady stream of statements slamming Democrats for not producing a budget this year and not adopting one last year. The Budget Committee approved a budget last year, but Senate leaders chose not to put it on the floor for a vote.

Earlier Thursday, all 11 Republicans on the Budget Committee issued a statement criticizing the delay. “Democrats campaigned for the majority,” the statement said. “They asked for the job. To shut down the budget process is a deep disservice to the American electorate.”

One Budget Committee Democrat, Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, agreed with Conrad that even though the budget is being delayed, Democrats are “pretty close” to reaching agreement on a plan. “I’m not aware of any major differences in our caucus,” he said.

But Cardin said Democrats hope the Biden commission will produce a bipartisan deficit reduction plan that many also see as a potential vehicle for getting the votes to raise the debt ceiling. “We’re still looking to see whether there’s an opportunity for a bipartisan agreement coming out of the Biden talks, or the group of five and a half or whatever,” he said, referring to what used to be called the Gang of Six until Tom Coburn, R-Okla., quit the group in frustration earlier this week.

Brian Friel contributed to this story.