House advances $1.07T budget plan opposed by conservatives

House Republicans advanced a fiscal 2017 budget resolution out of a key panel late Wednesday, over the objections of conservatives who will likely make it impossible to pass the measure on the House floor.

The House Budget Committee debated the resolution all day and into the night, considering dozens of amendments and ultimately voting 20-16 to send the bill to the House floor.

“This budget shows a commitment to doing what is right, what is responsible to ensure a brighter future for all Americans,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who is eager for the House to endorse a spending blueprint, praised the Budget Committee action, even though it does not guarantee the measure will ever pass the full House.

“I commend Chairman Price for passing a responsible, conservative budget that cuts the deficit by $7 trillion and balances within a decade—all without raising taxes,” Ryan said in a statement. “This blueprint also repeals Obamacare, shrinks the EPA, improves Medicare and Medicaid, strengthens our military, and calls for tax reform. It represents our vision for a smaller government and healthier economy, and it’s a document that can make all conservatives proud.”

But the budget proposal may not move much further in the House. Dozens of conservative Republicans say they oppose the bill because it spends $30 billion above mandatory budget caps. Conservatives want the discretionary spending plan reduced to $1.04 trillion, instead of its current level of $1.07 trillion.

The Republican Study Committee, made up of dozens of conservative lawmakers, will offer their own budget plan to reduce fiscal 2017 spending even more, to $974 billion.

The panel chairman, Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., urged committee members to nonetheless support the measure because it would help ensure Republican spending priorities are enacted in appropriations measures, rather than a negotiated deal with Democrats in a large “omnibus” spending measure.

“Congress must not cede even more power to the Executive Branch by foregoing our responsibility to budget,” Price said. “We also cannot surrender to the status quo and fail to act boldly when the times demand it and the American people demand it.”

Democrats unanimously opposed the resolution. While they agree with the $1.07 trillion topline spending limit, the budget resolution is a ten-year GOP funding blueprint that lowers tax rates by broadening the tax base, reduces the cost of entitlements, and repeals President Obama’s policies such as the Affordable Care Act and the Wall Street Banking reform law.

“It’s another budget that helps those who are doing just fine, thank you, at the expense of everybody else in America,” said Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said. “It’s based on a continued failed theory of trickle-down economics. The idea is that so long as people at the top get tax breaks, that it will somehow lift everybody else up. What we’ve seen, and the record is pretty clear, is that it has not lifted all boats. It has lifted only the yachts.”

Democrats offered a slew of amendments, including a measure that would prevent individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list from purchasing firearms.

“If there was ever a topic we could agree on, I would hope we could agree on keeping guns out of the hands of terrorist,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. The amendment failed by a vote of 22-14.

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