The Tea Party will be put to its biggest test yet this week as the House wrestles with a spending bill the GOP wants to trim by $100 billion. The bill, which would fund the final seven months of fiscal 2011, threatens to pit moderate Republicans who are wary of drastic cuts against the legions of House Republican freshmen backed by Tea Party activists demanding Congress whittle down federal spending to shrink the deficit. “It’s a tough decision that most people are going to have to make,” Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said. “I guarantee you there will be cuts in this appropriations bill that nobody will like.” The bill also poses a threat to the functioning of the federal government as it will set up a battle with the Democratic-led Senate.
The two sides need to agree on a spending plan by March 4, when the current budget expires.
Senate Democratic leaders have denounced the House GOP cuts and say they may even increase spending on some programs.
“We are not going to take a meat ax to this,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “We need to do some very fine-tuning. With a scalpel.”
Simpson, a close ally of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the disagreement between the two chambers might lead to a government shutdown.
“I know that it is not something the leadership wants to do,” Simpson said. “Is it a possibility? Yeah.”
The cuts will first have to win House approval. Few Democrats will support it, so Republicans will need most of their members in order to pass it.
But some veteran GOP lawmakers from less conservative districts have told The Washington Examiner they may not support some of the reductions, particularly those aimed at helping low-income families.
“It’s to be determined,” Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, said of the proposal. LaTourette is a member of the Appropriations Committee and said he’s worried about cuts to Amtrak, heating assistance for the poor, and other reductions.
The GOP moderates are up against the momentum of 87 House Republican freshmen as well as dozens of other GOP members who signed a “Pledge to America” during the 2010 campaign to cut the budget by $100 billion this year.
“It’s important to do what we said we were going to,” said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a member of the Appropriations Committee and a longtime advocate of budget cutting.
But Flake acknowledged the divide in the GOP conference.
“This institution for decades has been used to double-digit growth. So it’s just a tough turn to make,” he said.
Friday’s proposed reductions come after Republicans, in a surprising move, increased the number of cuts from a more expensive proposal after the GOP freshmen complained it fell short of the pledge.
The original spending cuts would have shrunk spending by $74 billion. The proposed cuts are deducted from President Obama’s request for the fiscal 2011 budget and amount to $58 billion in reduced spending from this year’s actual spending levels.
