House Republicans on Wednesday refused to yield in their pledge to uphold a campaign promise to reduce federal spending to 2008 levels despite an impasse with Democrats over the budget that threatens to shut down the government. Republican lawmakers essentially thumbed their noses at the Democrats Wednesday by reintroducing legislation that would cut $61 billion through September, the end of the current fiscal year. The Senate, run by Democrats, has already rejected the plan and declared the cuts too steep to support.
But Republican leaders are facing increasing pressure from their large faction of fiscal conservatives, who in turn are getting an earful from the Tea Party activists who helped elect them to Congress. Tea Party groups are planning a rally at the Capitol Thursday to pressure Republicans to hold their ground in the budget talks and refuse to settle for fewer cuts.
Recommended Stories
The GOP bill would not only reinstate their original budget-cutting legislation, but would stipulate that if the government shuts down, neither members of Congress nor the president would be paid.
“We are hopeful that this proposal will urge the Senate to act instead of play politics with a shutdown,” a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said.
But the proposal will do nothing to prevent a shutdown because the Democratic-led Senate will never take it up. The bill is mainly a political ploy by the GOP as it struggles with it’s own internal division over how to proceed with the budget talks.
Many House Republicans have suggested they would vote against a bill that cuts less than the $61 billion, which reduces spending to the 2008 levels the GOP promised during the 2010 campaign.
“I think we need to keep our word to the American people,” said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., a speaker at Thursday’s Tea Party rally.
But as Cantor was pushing to reintroduce the GOP bill, staff working for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., were trying to negotiate a potential deal on which both parties could agree. According to aides, Democrats are floating a plan that would meet the GOP halfway on their budget by cutting about $30 billion in spending for the remaining six months of the fiscal year.
Both Democratic and GOP aides confirm the talks are ongoing, with one Democratic leadership aide saying the two sides are down to debating an whether to increase the cuts by another $6 billion.
Both sides are also debating the social-policy provisions many in the GOP want to include in the bill, including one that would defund Planned Parenthood.
“I suspect riders will be in the final bill, I just don’t know what they’ll be,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said.
Reid, meanwhile, has tried to play up the GOP divide for his own political gain, repeatedly suggesting that Boehner is being prevented from striking a deal by the Tea Party, whom he called “a radical, unrealistic, unreasonable and unpopular faction.”
He called the House GOP decision to reintroduce their original budget bill a symbolic stunt.
