This week, all eyes in Washington are focused on the Big Six and the release of their tax reform framework. But tax reform proponents cannot afford to let this highly-anticipated release distract Congress from first completing the essential task of passing a budget. The Big Six’s outline should increase the resolve of congressional Republicans to pass a budget and unlock the reconciliation process, which is a critical part of the tax reform effort.
Tax reform is Congress’ most important fiscal priority, although the FY 2018 House Republican budget includes many other worthy reforms the conference has supported in the past – reaching spending balance in under a decade, prescriptions on how to secure lasting reforms in entitlement spending, to name a few. This year’s budget goes even further by writing mandatory spending instructions that require committees to find at least $203 billion in savings. These instructions would demand 11 different committees find savings in their mandatory spending programs – a reduction so broad it would result in the largest mandatory spending reform package in 20 years.
With each new day and the chaos it usually brings on Capitol Hill, the punditry class forecasts the end of the conservative policy era in Washington. There couldn’t be a better time for Republicans to demonstrate a strong vision for governing — swift passage of the FY 2018 budget gives them the opportunity to do just that.
The budget process has always been an exercise designed to illuminate, not exhaust, the prerogatives of the ruling party. Prior to gaining control of the House in 2010, the conservative Republican Study Committee produced an annual budget that gave Republicans an opportunity to cast a vote for conservative policy objectives and provide a stark contrast to the tax-and-spending blueprints the Democrat-controlled House would pass.
When Republicans took over, the RSC continued to produce a budget that was similar to the Budget Committee product but typically pushed further to the right on spending reductions and reforms. Even so, RSC leadership promoted a “yes yes” approach to budget votes, prompting members to support both budgets to accomplish the twin objectives of goal-setting and governing. In a statement to Budget Committee Chairwoman Diane Black this year, RSC Chairman Mark Walker made clear the RSC budget was designed to be “a complementary, not a competing, proposal.”
This exercise gives members the latitude to negotiate policy reform while accumulating a voting record that paints a clear picture of their governing philosophy for voters. At a time when there is more noise than ever crowding out the nuanced policy work done on Capitol Hill, lawmakers could hardly be better served than by voting on the House Republican Budget that makes clear they share the priorities of the constituents who sent them to Washington.
What message will Congress be sending to these Americans if it rejects the opportunity to set the course for how it will govern now? The RSC 2018 budget says, “The first priority of tax reform should be to focus on eliminating government-imposed obstacles to economic growth.” No one has made this case more frequently than President Trump himself, who has relentlessly argued that tax reform is a necessary condition for repositioning the United States as the unquestioned global economic leader. Absent Congress agreeing to a budget, it is difficult to see how this shared priority between the president and conservatives in Congress is accomplished.
In 2012, both the House and Senate brought President Barack Obama’s budget to the floor for a vote. In both chambers, the number of votes to support the president’s agenda was the same: zero.
In contrast, Republicans provided a unified vision for how they would govern, and were rewarded with both policy and political victories. Lawmakers were able to maintain the sequester spending caps and make a large majority of the Bush tax cuts permanent. They were awarded control of the Senate the following year and the White House in the subsequent cycle.
The question of what Republicans do with the power to chart bold progress can be put to rest with the unified passage of a budget now.
Mattie Duppler Springer (@MDuppler) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is the senior fellow for fiscal policy at the National Taxpayers Union. She’s also the president of Forward Strategies, a strategic consulting firm.
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