Bowing to demands from conservatives influenced by the tea party movement, House leaders are pressing to protect the Pentagon in 2013 while cutting budgets for domestic agencies below levels set during last summer’s showdown over the federal debt ceiling. The decision has alarmed both Democrats and some GOP moderates, who said the move could spark a fresh clash over the annual bills needed to keep the government running into the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
If that dispute is not resolved, Democrats warned that the government — or significant parts of it — could shut down five weeks before the election.
On Tuesday, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) defended the decision to set agency budgets $19 billion lower than the cap established last year.
“People have limits on credit cards. That doesn’t mean that you’re required to spend up to the limit,” Boehner told reporters. “It just says you can’t spend any more than that.”
Democrats immediately accused the GOP of reneging on the hard-fought deal, which both parties had hoped would get them through the Nov. 6 election without additional drama. In the Senate, Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) filed a motion to permit spending bills to be drafted at the higher level — which, he noted, “everyone agreed to just last year.”
“House Republicans, I hope, would do the same,” Conrad said. “If they fail to do so, they will once again threaten to shut down the government and needlessly imperil the economic recovery.”
It was not clear, however, that Boehner could deliver on last summer’s agreement even if he wanted to. Centrist Republicans responsible for writing the annual spending bills openly fretted about being squeezed between the demands of the Senate and the demands of their own right wing, where the $19 billion cut is widely viewed as too timid.
“I don’t know how we get our work done,” said Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio), who allowed that Democrats have a point about Republicans breaking their word. “It’s law. . . . So I have difficulty backing off,” he said.
Ryan said he has the votes to push the broader, $3.5 trillion budget blueprint out of committee Wednesday and present it to the full House next week. But the committee vote could be close.
The blueprint largely reprises the spending plan Ryan unveiled one year ago, with a few new details penciled in. The plan would put the nation on course to balance the budget by 2040 and shrink the national debt to historic norms as a percentage of the economy. But because Ryan rejects higher taxes, that path would require significant reductions in a host of popular programs.
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