BUSH NO LONGER HAS UNIFIED CONGRESSIONAL GOP SUPPORT.

As the president's approval ratings dropped for the first time below 50 percent in a Gallup poll, Republicans in both the House and Senate last week broke ranks with him over his $2.4 trillion budget and attacked each other over transportation and energy bills as well as the judicial appointment process.

Despite a retreat last weekend where Republicans were supposed to air their differences in private and emerge with a unified agenda, the fiscal conservative wing of the party openly fought with the more moderate Republican lawmakers.

The fiscal conservatives stepped up their demand for repeal of the new Medicare prescription drug law after the Congressional Budget Office confirmed Feb. 2 the White House estimate for the new drug benefit was about $140 billion higher than the CBO's $395 billion estimate.

Senate Health, Education, Health and Pensions Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH) openly criticized the administration. "The fact that we were misled, the fact that this number is so high is unfortunate and the problem is it puts in place structural spending which is out of control," he said.

Gregg also was one of several key Republican leaders who voiced opposition to the transportation reauthorization bill before the Senate.

Other key Republican leaders who opposed moving forward quickly on the bill without major changes included Republican Policy Committee Chairman Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles (R-OK).

Pushing for quick passage were Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. Imhofe (R-OK), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley and Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-AL).

Sen. Christopher S. Bond, the transportation and infrastructure subcommittee chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, also pushed for quick passage, but Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) did not appear optimistic about how quickly he could get the measure through.

Frist also had scheduled a vote for Feb. 6 on another stalled piece of legislation, H.R. 6, the energy bill, but the Senate was still on the transportation reauthorization bill.

In an attempt to move the energy bill, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said he would drop a provision giving lawsuit protection to manufacturers of the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether, a suspected carcinogen.

That bill has been stalled since Nov. 21, when a cloture vote failed by two votes. None of the six Republican senators who voted against it then have said they have changed their mind about opposing to the MTBE provision.

Domenici's action was a clear break with the White House and the House Republican leadership.

Domenici said he had told House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-LA) and the House leadership of his decision and "they aren't particularly happy about it, but I believe stripping MTBE out is necessary to get this bill through the Senate."

In addition to dropping the MTBE provision, Domenici said he had asked his staff to come up with a new bill with less expensive benefits for the oil and gas industry, the coal industry and utility companies. He said he expected "a budget point of order is inevitable." But he said he thought the bill could pass because the cost "will be completely offset by fees charged to power companies to implement the program."

Then there was the furor over Frist's decision to let go Manuel Miranda, legal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), for allegedly leaking confidential Democratic documents on judicial nominations to the press.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was openly attacked by conservative groups for allegedly making Miranda into a scapegoat.

"There is no doubt Orrin Hatch is responsible for what happened," said Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation. "It's just another example of how he prefers to be loved by the Democrats rather than respected by everyone."

Miranda had been put on extended leave while an investigation was conducted to determine how the confidential Democratic staff documents were accessed on computers by the Republican staff on the committee.

After reviewing the investigative results, Hatch reportedly concluded Miranda had acted unethically and urged Frist to fire him.

Miranda was seen by Senate Republicans as the staff person who had galvanized the Senate Republican caucus to wage last year's fierce battle against the Democratic filibusters of Bush judicial nominees.

He transferred to Frist's Majority Leader staff last February.

Jeff Mazzella of the Center for Individual Freedom criticized both Frist and Hatch and voiced concern the move indicated the GOP leadership was backing away from the fight with Democrats to confirm judicial nominees.

On the House side, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman, Rep. Don Young (R-AK), is under open fire from the conservatives over his proposal to help cover the increased costs of the transportation reauthorization bill by increasing the federal gasoline tax by 8 cents a gallon.

And the conservatives stepped up their call for a "rescission" bill that would repeal at least portions of the new Medicare prescription drug act and some of the spending included in this year's omnibus spending bill.

Both House conservatives and Democrats expressed outrage after Treasury Secretary John W. Snow told the House Ways and Means Committee Feb. 3 that the Bush administration had underestimated the cost of the new Medicare prescription drug law's Health Savings Accounts.

Snow said the cost at the time the bill passed was thought to be $6.7 billion over 10 years, but the administration now thinks the cost will be closer to $16 billion over the next 10 years.

He said that underestimated cost was in addition to the almost $140 billion the administration had announced earlier as having been underestimated.

Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), the ranking member of the committee, pointed out the budget included a figure of $7 billion but that applied only to the cost of the program over the next five years, not the next 10 years as Congress had laid out when it passed the Medicare bill thinking it had placed a cap on the program's expenses of $400 billion over the next 10 years.

The president's budget also came under attack from both House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young and House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-IA).

Young cautioned about thinking that freezing spending would effectively cut the deficit.

"While I am dedicated to developing fiscally conservative budgets, no one should expect significant deficit reduction as a result of austere non-defense discretionary spending limits," he said. "The numbers simply do not add up." Nussle also said the president should have cut discretionary spending in the defense and homeland security departments.

None of the Republican leaders on either the House or Senate side picked up on Bush's call for making his tax cut package permanent and Congress appears unlikely to repeal any of them permanently this year.

Of those tax cuts, repeal of the estate tax is of particular interest to insurers.

The estate tax cuts are phased in through 2010, but then the previous estate tax rate is to be reinstated.

Bush also called for two new savings accounts, a lifetime savings account and a retirement savings account, with contributions of $5,000 allowed each year for each type of account.

Contributions would not be tax deductible but earnings would be allowed to be built up without being taxed and withdrawals would generally be tax-free.

Anyone could open an LSA but RSAs would be limited to persons earning wages.

The administration anticipates raising $20 billion in the next few years in taxing deductions made by people who switch from their tax-deductible IRAs to the new savings accounts.

The administration also proposed changing pension rules for when companies convert from traditional pensions to "cash balance" plans.

Similar rule changes were proposed last year, but then dropped after they were widely seen as discriminating against older workers.

Both Republicans and Democrats attacked the administration's pension rule changes and Congress passed legislation forbidding the Treasury Department from implementing its proposal before October 2004.