Legislation from Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) to establish discretionary spending caps may get a third vote this week in the Senate after falling one vote short of the needed 60 votes last week. The bipartisan proposal seems to be gaining momentum after getting 56 votes in January during the debt ceiling increase debate.

Once again, a president is trying to get rid of a “small” scholarship program tucked away in the Department of Education. And once again, the attempt is likely to be futile.

 In another indication of how broken the budget process is, Republicans and Democrats alike have tried to eliminate this $42 million program, first established in the mid-1980s--only to see it funded year after year. The problem seems to be the program’s name: “The Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program.”

Today, CRFB released our Analysis of the President's FY 2011 Budget. We will be following-up here at The Bottom Line with shorter analyses discussing specific aspects of the budget. This is the first:

President Obama's proposed freeze on non-security discretionary spending is leaving some agencies and programs feeling colder than others. In fact, some aren't chilly at all.

In yet another sign that the legislative process needs serious fixing, Congress last year appropriated $290.8 billion for programs that the House and Senate failed to reauthorize, the Congressional Budget Office says in a report released this month.

As the Senate continues its consideration of the debt ceiling today, it will consider at least three important budgetary amendments - a deficit commission supported by Senators Conrad and Gregg, statutory pay-as-you-go rules to be introduced by Senator Reid, and discretionary budget caps supported by Senators Sessions and McCaskill.

Yesterday -- citing CRFB's work -- The Stephen Dinan of Washington Times wrote that President Obama, in his first year, was more successful than President Bush in getting his spending cuts enacted. Several administration officials, including President Obama himself, have repeated this fact. According to the article:

The House voted Wednesday to sustain President Obama's veto of a Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded. Huh? Confused? Why wasn't this front-page news Thursday morning? Because what looked important was simply a bit of budget cooperation between the Legislative and Executive branches of government.

Yesterday, on the heels of President Obama signing a $1.1 trillion "minibus" CRFB released a paper on the importance of controlling discretionary spending growth. The paper showed that, while fiscal conservatives tend to worry about mandatory spending, discretionary spending has actually been growing faster over the last decade. It also devotes a small box to discussing President Obama's proposed spending cuts -- which this blog will discuss in more detail.

The House passed a bill yesterday containing six of the appropriations bills still lingering in Congress, at a total cost of $447 billion.

UPDATE: Stan Collender thinks we might be making ice mountains out of snow hills.

According to a number of news reports, President Obama has begun asking agencies to plan for a discretionary spending freeze next year -- or perhaps a 5 percent cut. The President may propose such as initiative as part of a deficit-cutting themed State of the Union address in January.