The House will leave Washington, D.C., on Wednesday for the rest of the month without taking up a fiscal 2017 budget resolution, leaving little time to pass the measure when they return.
Lawmakers have until April 15 to pass a spending blueprint, but it appears increasingly likely the date will come and go without lawmakers approving one.
“There are more conversations among members which will be required before moving the budget to the floor, and therefore it will not be scheduled for the upcoming abbreviated week,” Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said before the House adjourned for the weekend.
Republicans simply lack enough votes to pass their plan, a $1.07 trillion measure that includes tax reform, Obamacare repeal and the rollback of Wall Street banking reforms. The blueprint would also reform entitlements in order to reduce costs, and would cut domestic spending by $6.5 trillion over the next decade compared to the current spending trajectory.
The House Budget Committee last week voted to advance the measure with just two Republican defectors, but dozens of conservatives have threatened to vote against it if it reaches a floor vote.
Conservative lawmakers say they want lower domestic spending. Specifically, they are pushing GOP leaders to reduce the top line spending number for 2017 to $1.04 trillion in order to adhere to budget caps established in 2011 to reduce the deficit.
Without most of the GOP conference backing it, the budget plan is almost certainly doomed, as Democrats are uniformly opposed to the GOP plan. Even though they agree with the top line number, the policy issues, such as broadening the tax base to lower rates and repealing the Affordable Care Act, are non-starters.
“We call it the road to ruin,” said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “It devastates good-paying jobs, is lacking investment in education, the future of infrastructure in America, abandons seniors by ending the Medicare guarantee, and demands $6.5 trillion in cuts, the most extreme cuts ever proposed by Republicans on the Budget Committee.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said he wants to pass a budget. But he’s not going to force his rank and file to go along with the plan.
Ryan said he expects to hold votes on a number of budgets, including those put forward by conservatives and Democrats, too.
“We’re going to be discussing this with our conference on how best to proceed,” he said.
But one big sign that a budget may not happen is that House appropriators, who write the individual spending legislation needed to fund the government, aren’t waiting for a budget to pass.
Hearings are already starting on the fiscal 2017 appropriations legislation. Lawmakers will try to advance the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Bill from committee on Wednesday.
“Appropriations have been going through with their committee meetings,” McCarthy said. “So we are in line to get them done on time and moving them forward.”
The Senate will begin considering appropriations bills when it returns in April.
