KAI RYSSDAL: It's called the power of the purse. The Constitution says Congress has it. Of course, the White House is free to submit its own budget request. And the president said today he'll do just that on Monday. He's promising his fiscal 2008 budget will be a big step on the way to balancing the government's books. But before that can happen lawmakers need to take care of their fiscal '07 accounting. They're hoping to do that by tomorrow. It'll be about $463 billion worth of budgetary horsetrading...

Still, Congress could be opening a Pandora's box by giving any agency more money. Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicts the process will now bog down. She says it would have been easier to have frozen everybody's budget.

MAYA MACGUINEAS: They're really going to make this a negotiation where every involved congressman and senator has their own opinion about how much we should spend...

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