Even as Republicans Tuesday announced a balanced budget deal, top GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill pushed for eliminating spending caps with a bipartisan compromise that would ultimately increase federal spending.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said it will not be possible for the House to pass 12 spending bills this year unless Republicans and Democrats can agree to a deal that lifts the so-called sequestration imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act.
The law limits requires a trillion-dollar reduction in the federal budget over ten years, which has meant significant reductions in annual spending to meet that goal.
“The numbers we are having to appropriate to, I’m not sure we can pass these bills,” Rogers said on Tuesday as he headed into the House chamber to vote. “It’s going to be tough.”
Rogers would not comment on reports that he plans to put appropriations bills on the floor that cannot pass, such as those that fund transportation and housing, or health and human services, in order to demonstrate the need for lifting the budget caps.
“I don’t want to get into what we are doing, chronologically,” Rogers said, but he hinted at the strategy.
A $55.3 billion bill funding the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and related agencies, cleared a subcommittee on Tuesday and could be soon headed for a floor vote, Rogers said.
Republicans had to pull a similar bill from the floor in 2013 because lawmakers balked at the cuts imposed by the sequester.
Republican leaders are vying for a bipartisan accord that essentially ditches the sequester in favor of finding savings elsewhere.
Those savings, Rogers said, could come from reforming entitlements or taxes.
But such a prospect will be difficult, if not impossible, since Republicans and Democrats have vastly different ideas on tax reform, while Democrats are particularly averse to making significant changes to entitlements.
But Rogers is optimistic.
“I think there’s a deal to be had between the White House and the House and Senate leadership, to give some relief from sequestration and perhaps some other things like reforms to entitlements and taxes.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters earlier this month that he also endorses the idea of finding a deal to get rid of the sequester.
Leadership aides told the Washington Examiner it’s possible the House and Senate will send a handful of individual bills to the president’s desk, and then work out a compromise plan to lift the spending caps and pass the remaining spending bills in a single package.
A House and Senate spending blueprint, however, keeps the $1.02 trillion 2016 spending cap in place, using a special overseas contingency fund to beef up military spending without having to cut spending elsewhere.
Republicans are likely to take up the budget proposal this week and it’s expected to pass despite a likely lack of any Democratic support and and opposition from some fiscal conservatives, including Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich.
“We’ve read some of the reports that indicate it’s a less fiscally conservative budget,” Amash told the Examiner.
The compromise budget deal between House and Senate Republicans drops a House provision that would have converted Medicare into a premium support program, Amash noted.
But many conservative Republicans said they are willing to vote for the budget because it includes a provision that would allow the Senate to repeal the healthcare law with 51 votes instead of 60, which would enable Congress to send the bill to President Obama’s desk.
“I want to get the Obamacare repeal on the president’s desk with 51 votes in the Senate, and it’s our only shot.” Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., told the Examiner.
