Budget Impasse Reflects GOP Schism

"The reason we're going to the mat is, with all these expiring tax cuts, if you have paygo in place, you're going to virtually guarantee these tax cuts will go back up," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Ryan and other House Republicans argued that the budget must be brought into balance by reining in the size of government. "The deficit is a symptom; spending is the disease," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.). "And we have to do something about the disease."

There are limits to the effectiveness of spending cuts. Even if Congress had eliminated every penny of the $438 billion in domestic discretionary spending this year, every education and health program, every homeland security effort, national park, interstate highway and federal prison, the government would still find itself in the red.

"When it comes to budgetary matters, we can't operate on ideological whims," Snowe said. "Numbers tell the truth."

Moreover, when the House was offered the opportunity to cut spending, the vote last week was not even close. A bill drafted by Hensarling to give the annual budget the force of law, clamp down on "emergency" spending bills, and require a "supermajority" in the House and Senate to exceed strict spending caps was crushed at 11:30 Thursday night, 326 to 88. A less sweeping measure establishing two years of strict spending caps and requiring entitlement spending increases to be offset by entitlement cuts lost 268 to 146.

"Tonight can aptly be called 'Republican Budget Failure Redux,' " House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said after the votes. "Republicans have followed their total lack of leadership on the most basic legislative duty -- to adopt a budget for the nation -- with a total lack of leadership on real budget enforcement legislation."

House Budget Committee spokesman Sean Spicer accused the Republican moderates of grandstanding as budget hawks, even as they continue to vote for bigger government.

"They are hardly deficit hawks," Spicer said. "If you see their name in press, nine times out of 10, they are wanting more spending."