House passes $60B in spending cuts - POLITICO.com Print View

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House passes $60B in spending cuts By: David Rogers February 19, 2011 05:23 AM EST More a battering ram than a budget, a giant government-wide spending bill passed the House early Saturday morning, packing $60 billion in Republican spending cuts together with scores of legislative riders to impede President Barack Obama in carrying out his policies. Final passage came on a 235-189 vote shortly before dawn, capping an all-night session and marathon week during which literally hundreds of amendments were debated. The open process — and largely civil tone — represent a victory for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). But by moving so far right to appease his large freshman class, Boehner picked up no Democratic votes and sacrificed what many saw as his best shot of scoring a quick win in the Senate at the expense of Obama. Instead, Senate Democrats will be more united now and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stronger after Saturday’s margins. And the real question becomes: can Reid, Boehner and Obama pick their way through the coming weeks without falling into a government shutdown? Since Oct. 1, agencies have been funded under a series of continuing resolutions or CR’s, the latest of which is due to expire Mar. 4. Washington is already electric with speculation of a shutdown and today’s circumstances are more dangerous than the crisis in 1995 when Republicans had also just taken over the House. Unlike 1995, the nation is at war, with U.S. troops in the field in Afghanistan and Iraq. This profoundly raises the symbolism of any shutdown even as the political distance between Obama and the new Republican-tea party majority is far greater than what existed between then President Bill Clinton and the so-called Republican Revolution in 1995. So much of 1995 was dominated by the outsized personality of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich who fancied himself a modern Cromwell leading Parliament against the king. By comparison the bill now reflects a more genuine upheaval, springing from the Republican ranks and demanding far more dramatic spending cuts than anything attempted so early in 1995. The $60 billion in reductions are concentrated in the last six months of this fiscal year and represent a 14 percent cut that will severely impact Obama’s agenda at home and abroad. Foreign aid and State Department operations would be cut as much as $10 billion from Obama’s latest request. Pell Grants for low income college students are reduced, and School Turnaround Grants cut by almost two-thirds. The Environmental Protection Agency lost $2.7 billion from its current appropriations. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, charged with major new responsibilities under Wall Street reforms, would get a third of the funding Obama wants. And the new Republican majority would block not just federal regulators but Obama’s signature achievement thus far: healthcare reform. Indeed, the final day of House floor debate Friday showed that a large faction in the Republican conference still wants $22 billion more in reductions than the bill provides. “The American people are ahead of us. They are asking us to go one step forward…to be bold,” said Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), one of 147 Republicans, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who supported the cuts. And the amendment only failed because of concerted opposition by top GOP leaders and the House Appropriations Committee. Among the three Republicans who voted against the bill — Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and John Campbell of California — Flake and Campbell were both part of this group seeking more cuts. For its part, the Appropriations leadership is not wedded entirely to the final package either. “I don’t think the chairman of the full committee likes the CR very much. If he did he wouldn’t have been required to write it three times,” joked Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) in the closing debate. And many on the committee believe that its initial bill, making $32 billion in cuts, was a far more realistic target given the makeup of the Senate. As lawmakers go home for their Presidents Day recess, the next seven days could prove pivotal in shaping public opinion — and how GOP moderates respond — in relation to the expansive House bill. What began as a straight-forward budget-cutting exercise is now a ledger bulging with provisions that touch on everything from Western lands management to Florida water quality rules, Internet regulations, a new consumer product safety data bank, and emissions standards for the cement industry. West Virginia coal interests and East Coast fishermen won relief in the post-midnight amendments Saturday, even as the powerful ethanol lobby suffered twin setbacks. And in their eagerness to cut off legal fees for environmental lawyers, Western Republicans may have inadvertently cut off veterans and the elderly as well — a potential minefield for their colleagues. As the marathon session stretched into early Saturday morning, a half-dozen members were asleep in the Speaker's Lobby off the House floor. Other lawmakers walked around bleary eyed, asking each other "Are we done yet." When Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced at 2:15 a.m. that the voting would end in another hour, members on both sides of the aisle cheered loudly. In fact, it was closer to two more hours. Boehner has been content to let this process evolve, but there will come a point soon when the speaker will have to weigh in more heavily. His critics see him as a weak leader, running to stay ahead of his troops. But others find a cleverness in his approach: steering this movement to Obama’s doorstep and from it capturing a certain energy himself, almost like those William Holden roles where a jaded character finds new purpose and comes alive in the end. When Congress returns Feb. 28, the first challenge will be for Boehner to steer through the House a short-term extension of current spending to avert any shutdown Mar. 4. In the war of nerves now, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) late Friday offered her own clean extension to Mar. 31 to put pressure on the speaker. But he has already signaled that he will want to use the same exercise to begin to ratchet down spending — to put pressure on the Senate to act and appease his own right. This is a third big difference from 1995: Republicans don’t control the Senate. And the tea party movement — so steeped in the Constitution — must come to terms with that side of the bargain: no one election can decide the direction of American government. “The last election is not determinative, the Founding Fathers wanted it that way,” Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told POLITICO. “This is part of the Constitution. It takes three election cycles to impact all of American government.” © 2011 Capitol News Company, LLC

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