http://thehill.com/homenews/house/270282-house-gop-leaders-see-budget-breakthrough By Sarah Ferris - 02/22/16 01:28 PM EST
House Republican leaders believe they have found a breakthrough in a weeks-long intraparty battle over the 2017 budget resolution.
The House Budget Committee put forward a proposal Monday that would maintain spending levels from last fall’s deal with the White House, while promising to hold votes on deficit-reducing measures sometime this year, according to an aide.
The proposal from Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) would break a bitter standoff among the party’s hard-right members, who have strongly criticized the $1.07 trillion spending levels set last year by President Obama and then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
“This proposal enjoys the overwhelming support of the committee members, and the chairman looks forward to sharing it with the broader Conference as we continue moving this process forward,” committee spokesman Ryan Murphy wrote in an email.
Price also put forward a delayed timeline for considering the budget blueprint, though he argues things are still ahead of schedule for the 2017 budget process. A markup on the 2017 budget blueprint will now be held in March — one week later than planned — so that the proposal can be floated by the entire House GOP conference.
Opposition to the Obama-Boehner spending deal has been led by members of the House Freedom Caucus. But some members, including outspoken Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), said they would previously back a budget blueprint if they could also vote on ways to reduce the deficit.
“If it promises in writing, that’ll get me to a yes real quick,” he said. “Then I can go back to my constituents, we can all go back to our constituents, and say, 'Look we have a deal that’s going to save the economy, make it right for the next generation,' with a straight face.”
That strategy of tying deficit-reduction votes to the budget proposal was among several possibilities under consideration reported by The Hill earlier this month.
The House GOP will have multiple options to vote on the deficit-reducing measures, an aide said, including floor votes on separate legislation as well as using a budget tactic known as reconciliation.
Any efforts to reduce the deficit through mandatory spending would likely be controversial, particularly in an election year, because of the effect on popular entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Price has not said how deficit reduction would be achieved, except that the savings would come from mandatory programs.
