House Speaker Paul Ryan told a divided GOP conference they do not have to agree on a budget this year, but a unified spending plan would give the party a chance to “do big things” in 2017.
Republicans are split on how the conference should proceed with plans to pass a fiscal 2017 budget. They met with Ryan Friday morning for the first in what is likely to be a series of meetings about how or whether to produce a budget.
The House and Senate can debate and vote on appropriations bills without a formal budget plan, but skipping the process would deny the GOP the opportunity to present their fiscal solutions to the public ahead of the November election.
“It would be a shame, but the sky won’t fall if we don’t do a budget,” Ryan told lawmakers.
Some conservatives want to reduce spending from the $1.07 trillion that Democrats and Republicans negotiated last year with President Obama. They argue that the GOP should focus on reducing the $19 trillion debt and curbing the growth of government.
Other Republicans want to bolster defense spending beyond the $15 billion increase provided in the bipartisan budget agreement struck last year, citing world terrorism concerns and the need to defeat the Islamic State.
Ryan, the former chairman of the House Budget Committee, told GOP lawmakers they can pass a budget that reduces spending below the bipartisan agreement set last year. But that would result in Senate Democrats blocking every spending bill, which would require an end-of-year negotiation on an all-inclusive, omnibus spending bill.
Adding to defense spending also would provoke opposition from Democrats, who will insist on an equal increase for domestic spending.
Ryan advocated for a third option. He wants Republicans to “pass a budget that balances and spells out our entire vision but also respects the recent agreement for 2017.”
A budget blueprint will best enable Congress to move a dozen spending bills through committees and onto the floor for separate debate and passage, which hasn’t happened in decades.
Those who attended the meeting said lawmakers didn’t come to an agreement.
Most of the pushback on the budget plan comes from the GOP’s conservative flank. Some of those lawmakers say they will agree to vote on the $1.07 trillion budget if there is also a vote on Ryan’s past budget proposals, which reduce entitlement costs.
Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., calls the current budget “a crap sandwich,” because it increased spending over two years by $80 billion. He said he would only support it if GOP leaders guaranteed a vote on Ryan’s past budget proposals tackling the cost of Medicare and Social Security.
“It has got to be a promise that we are going to enact at least one piece of that,” Brat said. “And any of those policies will dwarf the $80 billion.”
