The House and Senate Budget Committees start their work today on the budget outline for the next fiscal year, the first true test of President Obama's plans on health care and more.

And the early returns indicate that they are going to make some fairly sizeable changes to the Obama budget.

Now obviously, no one gets everything they want, but still, some of these changes are significant.

For example, the Senate budget outline right now would stop the new Obama tax relief plan from the stimulus bill after just two years.

Both the House and Senate budget plans do not include any specific mention of the cap and trade/global warming plan in the President's budget. It doesn't mean it's dead, but it's certainly not front and center, either.

The Senate bill also doesn't specify that money raised for health care reform would go into a specific fund just for that purpose.

And we'll certainly find out more today as committee work begins on the parameters for the Fiscal Year 2010 budget.

And if we administered some truth serum right now, the budget would be short on votes because of Democratic Party concerns.

But there's a week to go for Democratic leaders to whip those lawmakers into line.

As of now, this is a repeat of the stimulus debate, as few if any Republicans will vote with the Democrats on the budget.

The major concern of more moderate to conservative Democrats in both the House and Senate is a high level of spending and deficits, mixed in with concerns about plans for new taxes to pay for health care reform and more.

President Obama will come to Capitol Hill today to meet with Democratic Senators on the issue.  They are probably the ones who will have the greatest impact on the ultimate shape of this plan, much to the consternation of liberal Democrats in the House, who don't want to see Obama's budget sails trimmed too much.

But that's the reality of the situation right now.  With no Republican support, the White House needs every vote possible.  And to get them, some items must be changed.

Stay tuned.