CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
March 9, 2012 – 9:56 p.m.
‘Sequester’ Divides Budget Writers
By Paul M. Krawzak and Kerry Young, CQ Staff
The $109 billion in automatic spending cuts scheduled to kick in next January are bringing pain earlier than expected, as House Republicans struggle to write a budget resolution that will recommend alternative savings.
Little more than a week before Budget Chairman
With no agreement to change the automatic spending “sequester,” half of the cuts next January would come from defense spending, which Republicans particularly want to avoid.
The dispute over how to handle the automatic cuts is posing a threat to one of the House GOP’s primary objectives, which is to pass a spending plan that Republicans can trumpet as controlling the rising debt and can contrast with the Democrats’ decision not to advance a budget resolution in the Senate for the third straight year.
Some House Budget Committee members expected that at least the argument over the level of discretionary spending for next year would be resolved during a closed-door session on March 8. That meeting, which included panel Republicans and House Majority Leader
GOP lawmakers said afterward that they had made progress and that they expected to be in touch by telephone over the next week as aides began to assemble the budget.
Budget Committee members were tight-lipped about details of their conversations. Republican
He had told reporters last month that disagreements among Republicans might keep the budget from being adopted.
“I was told the last time I was in there that loose lips sink ships, and so I’ve been zipped up,” Simpson said. “It was a good meeting. That’s all you need to know.”
Avoiding Sequester
The automatic cuts set to hit next year are the product of the August debt limit law (PL 112-25), which used the threat of an automatic sequester as a prod to get a special congressional committee to agree on a deficit-reduction plan.
The committee did not agree on a plan, however, and that set in motion the cuts, which will total about $109 billion in fiscal 2013, including about $97 billion from discretionary programs.
Ryan said earlier this year that he intended to write the fiscal 2013 budget resolution in a way that would make the automatic cuts unnecessary or at least prevent the portion that would come from defense.
‘Sequester’ Divides Budget Writers
Republicans in general oppose allowing any automatic cuts to fall on the Pentagon. But finding alternative savings that are acceptable both to conservatives and to more moderate Republicans is proving difficult.
The challenge of finding a path around the automatic cuts is complicated by the insistence of conservatives that the committee also adopt a lower discretionary spending limit than the $1.047 trillion for fiscal 2013 allowed by the debt limit law. That cap sets spending for defense at $546 billion and domestic discretionary spending at $501 billion. The automatic cuts would trim roughly $55 billion from defense accounts and an estimated $42 billion from the domestic discretionary side.
Conservatives insisted last week on a lower cap, and the limit from last year’s House budget resolution, $1.028 trillion, was offered as a possible compromise.
Discretionary vs. Entitlement
Beyond the debate over the spending cap, there is serious disagreement over where to find savings to replace the automatic cuts.
“I think that’s really where the debate is,” said Republican
Mulvaney said Republicans wanted to demonstrate that they are seeking options. “Here’s how we would rather cut the spending so that we can spend the money on defense,” he said.
The conservative Republican Study Committee is pushing for all the savings to be taken from domestic discretionary programs, including education and agriculture.
“We’re advocating you need to deal with the sequester in a real way,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman
Nonetheless, appropriators are pushing back, arguing that Congress should find savings from such entitlement programs as Medicare and Medicaid, the fastest-growing areas of the federal budget.
“I think it should come from the entitlement side of the ledger,” said Republican
Some GOP lawmakers said the budget resolution may include reconciliation instructions to reduce entitlement spending.
Under that procedure, the Budget Committee would issue directions to authorizing committees to produce plans to reduce entitlement spending. But because the Senate is unlikely to produce a budget resolution, much less one that calls for reconciliation savings, such an effort probably will not advance very far.
‘Sequester’ Divides Budget Writers
Both sides are preparing for the effect of the budget on the November election.
Appropriators are mindful that Democrats would wield further proposed cuts in domestic discretionary programs against GOP congressional candidates. But conservatives want to lay out a framework to reduce spending, even if it is not possible to achieve it this year.
“In some ways, this may all be messaging and an exercise that never becomes law,” Jordan said. “But we think it’s still important to show what you have to do to spend at a lower discretionary level.”