CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Sept. 23, 2011 – 9:44 p.m.
Panels Will Add to Mix on Deficit Decisions
By Richard E. Cohen, CQ Staff
The special committee charged with finding ways to reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years is getting mixed messages from regular House committees and their chairmen.
Legislative panels have until Oct. 14 to make recommendations to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. Although most chairmen are still feeling their way as they start to prepare specific guidance for the new panel, their early actions signal that the 12 members of the newly created deficit committee will have a stream of conflicting advice and warnings to sort out.
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House Armed Services Committee leaders, for example, have made clear their opposition to virtually any cuts at the Pentagon. Agriculture Committee Republicans have dismissed President Obama’s recommendations for farm program savings and might offer alternative cuts that most Democrats would probably reject. Other committees are holding off — perhaps waiting to see which way the wind is blowing for the debt reduction initiative.
Created as a last-minute addition to this summer’s measure to raise the federal debt ceiling (PL 112-25), the joint committee in many ways is an anomaly that runs counter to the prerogatives of the regular committee system.
Superseding the authority of the standing committees, it has been designed to move legislation to final House and Senate votes with limited debate and no amendments. And its mandate to make large spending cuts to programs is already prompting complaints from the committees that oversee those programs.
Still, the deficit panel has not completely short-circuited the existing order on Capitol Hill. Some congressional committees — notably, the House and Senate tax-writing panels — are well-represented on the joint panel. That could give them more leverage for dealmaking.
Committee leaders in the Democratic-controlled Senate are less likely to press for major changes to Obama’s deficit cutting recommendations, so the views of their House counterparts will be of particular interest to the joint panel.
An implicit concern is that if two or three large House committees decide, on a bipartisan basis, to resist the joint committee, that could jeopardize passage of its plan on the House floor. The current flap over passage of a continuing resolution to keep the government running beyond Sept. 30 has been a reminder that House Republicans can be unpredictable on spending issues.
Leadership Involvement
Republican Speaker
“Everyone is committed to meeting the statutory goal,” Hensarling said. “The chairmen have plans and knowledge of details that will be helpful to the joint committee in reaching its goals.”
The House Republican leadership — for which Hensarling serves as conference chairman — has been urging committees to offer constructive alternatives to the deficit reduction committee.
Panels Will Add to Mix on Deficit Decisions
“The Speaker wants to make sure that they have what they need,” a leadership aide said. “This is a leadership priority. . . . The joint committee has a short time limit and high pressure, and it needs to make a quick turnaround.”
In addition to Boehner, House Majority Leader
Early Signs of Pushback
Despite the leadership’s apparent commitment to the process, there are early indications that some House committees will act independently of Republican leaders.
Armed Services Committee Chairman
The new debt limit law imposes discretionary spending caps that are expected to hold defense spending $350 billion to $450 billion below the Obama administration’s projected spending levels over the next 10 years. But if Congress is unable to enact a deficit reduction plan designed by the new panel, a sequestration would go into effect that could mean hundreds of billions of dollars more worth of defense cuts.
“There is no scenario in the second phase of this proposal that does not turn a debt crisis into a national security crisis,” McKeon said in August, when Congress raised the debt ceiling. “Defense cannot sustain any additional cuts, either from the joint committee or the sequestration trigger.”
In a speech this month at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, he warned that “the trigger wouldn’t just gut our military. It would put it out of business.”
It remains to be seen whether McKeon will support the relatively modest Pentagon personnel and retiree changes that Obama recommended last week, including $22 billion over 10 years in co-payments and new premiums for the Tricare health care program.
Obama’s proposed deficit cuts also received a thumbs-down from House Agriculture Chairman
“The agriculture community remains willing to do its part in getting our fiscal house in order, but, in essence, President Obama’s plan for economic growth and deficit reduction is not credible,” Lucas said in a Sept. 19 statement, joined by
Instead of Obama’s suggested cuts in the crop insurance program, Lucas called for reducing conservation spending, as well as focusing on “integrity issues” in nutrition programs. Democrats on the joint committee likely would be hostile to such proposals.
Not all committees have been eager to join the fray. The House Education and the Workforce Committee, for one, has made no decisions on recommendations for the joint panel. Chairman
Panels Will Add to Mix on Deficit Decisions
Impending Tax Issues
The chairmen of two key House committees serve on the joint committee:
“Chairman Camp has been very clear that the input of members is very important to the process,” said a Ways and Means spokeswoman. “Members are contributing directly to him all the time. He’s very approachable.”
An Energy and Commerce spokeswoman added, “Chairman Upton has had conversations with members on both sides of the aisle — formally and informally.”