The House on Wednesday approved a $3.8 trillion spending plan for fiscal 2016 that balances the budget in a decade, reforms Medicare and Medicaid, and eliminates Obamacare.
The resolution passed by a vote of 228 to 199, and over the objections of some conservatives who opposed additional defense money because it would increase funding for a special defense spending account that does not require reductions elsewhere in the budget.
Lawmakers passed the budget after hours of debate on a half-dozen spending plans, three from Democrats and three from Republicans.
“A budget is a vision of the future and Republicans are making our vision very clear,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said.
The GOP gave their rank and file the choice of voting for a budget blueprint that did not boost defense spending.
But that measure had little chance of passing because 77 defense-minded Republicans, citing the threat of terrorism at home and abroad, pledged to vote against it.
They cited warnings from the military that the current funding levels are too low to maintain the nation’s defense.
“It would be rather reckless of us to ignore those warnings and do less,” Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said.
Some fiscal conservatives decided to back the measure with extra defense funding, authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., because the proposal includes a a bigger priority for the far Right: A provision that would make it easier for the Senate to repeal the Affordable Care Act with 51 votes, instead of 60.
The Senate is expected to approve its own budget blueprint early Friday morning. The plan is similar to the House version but not identical, so the two plans will have to be merged in a conference committee in April, when Congress returns from the two-week Easter recess.
Like the House plan, the Senate plan is expected to include additional money for the Defense Department.
The two budgets add $38 billion to a war spending account that does not require commensurate cuts elsewhere in the budget.
If the two chambers can agree on a compromise budget plan, it will provide a pathway for the Senate to repeal Obamacare with only 51 votes rather then the typical 60.
Obama is all but guaranteed to veto a measure that repeals his signature healthcare law. But such a vote would nonetheless be a monumental achievement for the GOP, which has been pledging and campaigning to vote on repealing Obamacare since it became law five years ago.
The House-passed budget reforms Medicare and Medicaid by converting them into voucher and block-grant programs, respectively. The proposal also makes cuts to welfare, including the food stamp program, which has grown significantly under the Obama administration.
Democrats argued in favor of three budget proposals, including a plan put forward by the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, which would raise taxes on the wealthy and expand tax breaks for lower and middle class, including an increase in the size and scope of the earned income tax credit.
“While the Republican budget helps folks at the very top with additional tax rate cuts and squeezes working families, our budget provides more relief to those working families,” Van Hollen argued on the House floor.
Democrats also accused Republicans of using gimmickry to beef up defense spending through the wartime spending account, which they called “a slush fund.”
But Republicans rejected all three Democratic plans.
Price brought a chart to the House floor, outlining the tax increases imposed under the Democratic proposals.
Van Hollen’s blueprint would require an additional $1.9 trillion in new taxes, Price said.
“When does their budget ever get to balance?” Price asked. “The answer is never.”
Republicans defeated the Van Hollen proposal, considered the chief Democratic budget alternative, by a vote of 160-264.
