CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
July 25, 2011 – 10:29 p.m.
Unusual Panel in Boehner Plan Would Lead Life of Conflict
By Richard E. Cohen, CQ Staff
A Republican leadership proposal to create a joint congressional committee to figure out how to reduce deficit spending by at least $1.8 trillion would introduce a unique and unpredictable device to tackle a daunting fiscal problem.
Pursuing a solution that has eluded multiple congressional and outside panels over the years, the proposed House-Senate panel’s 12 members would face numerous procedural stumbling blocks.
The House and Senate would first have to create the joint committee. The panel would then be required to complete its work before Thanksgiving — a period of less than four months that includes the monthlong congressional August recess, two additional weeks of scheduled House breaks and three other weeks when the Senate is slated to be gone. The panel would have to work with existing House and Senate committees with longstanding jurisdictional claims on the issues in play and build majority support in both chambers of a divided Congress.
The fact that the joint committee’s recommendations would face up-or-down floor votes in the House and Senate with no amendments could be a plus or a minus.
Republicans defended Speaker
But liberal Rep.
Scott complained that Republicans have proposed a new approach “designed to protect tax cuts that we passed last year, now that they want to cut spending.” Congress ought to examine all spending and revenues to make “balanced choices,” he added.
In bypassing Congress’ standing committees while planning to move what could be a consequential bill through the House and Senate under expedited procedures, Boehner and his allies are making some important assumptions — not the least of which is that six Democrats and six Republicans will be able to reach agreement.
The joint committee members — with three from each party from each chamber, appointed by party leaders — would need to be responsive to the interests of the Speaker, House Minority Leader
Unfamiliar Territory
Congressional experts could cite no precise parallel for creation of such a powerful panel. There have been numerous temporary House and Senate committees with finite legislative jurisdiction, as well as joint House-Senate investigative panels. There also have been government commissions with congressional members, but without final legislative authority.
“In other impasses, or gridlock, the consequences of not acting are not as dire,” said congressional scholar Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution. Or comparable panels may have begun their work with more agreement. With the military base-closing commissions, for example, “everybody was in agreement on the ends and the means, they needed someone to take the blame” for specific decisions, Binder said.
Ed Howard, executive vice president of the Alliance for Health Reform, has seen many entitlement and health care commissions come and go. Those that succeed benefit because the country already has reached a level of consensus. “Commissions provide an occasion for a decision. They don’t provide the decision,” Howard said.
Unusual Panel in Boehner Plan Would Lead Life of Conflict
Since 1975, only three joint committees have been appointed: a 1975-76 panel on bicentennial arrangements, a 1987 deficit reduction committee and a 1992 panel on congressional reorganization. The 1987 panel included all members of the House and Senate Budget committees, and it proposed what became a revised version (PL 100-119) of the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings (PL 99-177) deficit reduction law.
First, a Cap
The proposed joint committee would be the second stage of Boehner’s two-step debt limit plan. Its first element would impose a 10-year cap on discretionary spending to save $1.2 trillion over 10 years, as well as raise the debt limit by $1 trillion, an amount expected to last until next year.
The bill the House is scheduled to take up July 27 would put in place the first part of the package if Congress were to clear the bill, which remains uncertain.
Boehner’s proposal also would set annual discretionary caps that would include a sequester mechanism that would be triggered if the spending limits were not met in any year, forcing across-the-board spending cuts in all non-exempt accounts. It remained unclear which spending would be exempt. The approach is modeled after a similar mechanism Congress enacted in 1997 (PL 105-33) and expired in 2002.
The joint committee would be charged with delivering the second piece of the debt package for final action in December. The House and Senate would be directed to vote on the panel’s recommendations under strict time limits for debate. No amendments would be allowed and a simple majority vote would be required for passage in each chamber.
Assuming each chamber passed the package, President Obama could submit a recommendation for a second debt ceiling increase, which would go into effect unless Congress cleared a resolution of disapproval — a measure Obama would likely veto.
The joint committee would have broad legislative jurisdiction for any proposal to reduce the debt — including adjustments to revenue, entitlement programs and spending. But a House GOP leadership aide cautioned, “We will not appoint any members who will approve tax hikes,” a selection criterion that Reid and Pelosi would most certainly not follow.
Although the joint committee could consider a tax overhaul, this week’s Republican plan is expected to be silent on that topic.
Both chambers also would be required under the proposal to vote after Oct. 1, but before year’s end, on an unspecified amendment to the Constitution to require a balanced budget.
The overall proposal is “consistent with” the “cut, cap and balance” bill (
But House Republicans consider their plan a “very credible proposal that the Senate would have a hard time rejecting,” when the Senate is expected to consider debt ceiling options later this week, a House aide said. Republicans are also doubtful the Senate will pass the competing plan Reid released late Monday.
In a summary of Boehner’s proposal, a House GOP aide said that the two-step approach meets GOP criteria by: “making spending cuts that are larger than any debt ceiling increase; implementing spending caps to restrain future spending; and advancing the cause of the balanced budget amendment.”
Unusual Panel in Boehner Plan Would Lead Life of Conflict
The absence of tax increases in the plan represents a shift from the tentative agreement to include a tax overhaul in the debt plan that Boehner and Obama reached during closed-door White House negotiations. Their underlying principles would not have increased tax rates but would have added an estimated $800 billion over 10 years by closing tax preferences.
Joanne Kenen contributed to this story.