The U.S. House approved a draft budget yesterday with some drama along the way. Details on the important budget provisions and how the Iowans voted are after the jump.
A week ago, prospects to get any budget through the Republican-controlled House looked dicey. The Democratic caucus has been united against the GOP approach to budgeting, which calls for a balanced budget in ten years without any new revenues. That same old story would reduce taxes for the wealthiest Americans while slashing spending on discretionary programs that benefit low-income and middle-income people.
Within the GOP caucus, representatives who favor much higher defense spending have clashed with those who want deficit reduction to be a higher priority. That disagreement caused a $3.8 trillion budget blueprint to fail to clear the House Budget Committee on March 18, Vicki Needham reported for The Hill. One Iowan serves on that committee: Representative Rod Blum (IA-01). It’s not clear from Needham’s report where Blum stood on the main points of controversy: how much to increase funding for the war account (also called the overseas contingency operations fund), and whether spending cuts or other revenue increases would be needed to offset any proposed increase to the war account.
House leaders settled on an unconventional method to resolve the disagreement. Jake Sherman reported for Politico on March 23,
As House Republicans try to pass a 2016 budget blueprint, GOP leadership is relying on an obscure legislative procedure to try to break the impasse between staunch fiscal conservatives and defense hawks.
The move is called called “Queen of the Hill,” and it’s hardly ever used on Capitol Hill. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) will allow one vote on Rep. Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) Budget Committee’s spending plan, which infuriated defense-minded lawmakers who thought it underfunded the Pentagon.
They’ll also allow a vote on a nearly identical budget, which includes language to increase defense spending. Whichever plan gets the most votes will become the House GOP’s budget.
It’s a gamble for GOP leadership. It is betting that Price’s budget will fail and the spending plan with increased defense money will pass and become the fiscal plan for the House Republican Conference.
Yesterday’s votes played out as expected. Leaders brought Price’s budget blueprint to the floor first as an amendment, and it fell way short, with only 105 votes in favor (roll call). Iowa’s Representatives Blum, David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) all voted for that amendment, but scores of Republicans opposed it. (Defense spending affects the Iowa economy less than the economy in many other states, which contain more military bases or defense manufacturers.)
The second budget proposal with more defense spending passed by 219 votes to 208 (roll call). Again, Iowa’s three Republicans supported the amendment. All the House Democrats, including Iowa’s Dave Loebsack (IA-02), voted against both amendments.
In the final vote on passage, 228 Republicans supported the budget blueprint (roll call), including Blum, Young, and King. Loebsack and every other Democrat voted no, joined by seventeen Republicans, mostly hard-core deficit hawks.
Rebecca Shabad’s story for The Hill covered the big picture about the $3.8 trillion budget:
The budget would increase defense spending next year by boosting the Pentagon’s war fund to $96 billion, well above President Obama’s $58 billion request. […]
The budget would balance in nine years by cutting $5.5 trillion in spending over the next decade. None of the $96 billion in the war account would be offset with spending cuts.
Both the House and Senate GOP budgets keep spending caps known as sequestration that were imposed by a 2011 budget law. The Defense Department’s base budget in both blueprints is $523 billion, while the ceiling for non-defense domestic programs is $493 billion.
The GOP is relying on the war fund, which falls outside the budgetary ceilings, to increase defense spending.
Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities highlighted some of the more disturbing aspects of the budget blueprint.
I have not seen any official statement on the budget vote from Blum, Young, or King. I was particularly surprised not to see reaction from Blum. As mentioned above, he serves on the House Budget Committee. Last week he told the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier’s Christinia Crippes that he was excited to work on this issue.
Blum said the House Budget Committee looked to make cuts by focusing on the discretionary funds rather than the nondiscretionary funds that Blum says are “on autopilot.” He said the focus is on reforming and tightening up welfare programs and by giving states funds for certain programs to manage as they see fit.
He also noted the budget bill repeals the federal health care reform law known as Obamacare. […]
He said he would like to see a change in presidential leadership in 2016 that brings new policies that can reignite the economy in a way that the federal budget can be balanced faster than the projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on the House-proposed budget.
“If we keep our restraint on spending, like our budget has laid out, like I said, we can have a balanced budget in five to six years,” Blum said. “That’s pretty amazing, given where we’ve been here, and the way we’re racking up debt.”
That goal sounds quite unrealistic, given that the current plan relies on “accounting tricks” and other gimmicks, not to mention at least $1 trillion in unspecified spending cuts, to get to a balanced budget within ten years.
Representative Dave Loebsack released this statement after yesterday’s votes:
“It has long been said that a budget is a set of priorities, a vision of where one believes the country should be headed. The Republican-supported budget that passed the House today fails to reflect the priorities of Iowans I meet every weekend when I travel around my district. This budget ends the Medicare guarantee as we know it, disinvests in education, cuts important funding for rebuilding our infrastructure and eliminates vital job training programs. At a time when our economy is still continuing to recover, this is the wrong approach to putting our nation on a sustainable path forward. We need to pass a budget that invests in our nation’s future by growing our infrastructure, providing retirement security for seniors and making sure any child who wants to can afford to attend college. We need a budget that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-to-do.”
Amen to that.