Originally, House Republicans had planned this short work week as one to adopt the FY 2017 budget blueprint passed by the House Budget Committee last week. Passing a FY 2017 budget, despite the two year budget agreement reached last year, was to reinforce the Republican base and broadly that Republicans can rise above and lead in Washington. Instead, the House will adjourn Wednesday for a two-week-plus Easter recess with little to show for their efforts.
When the House returns to work April 12, they will have only four legislative days left to adopt a budget by the statutory deadline of April 15. While House leadership hopes to use the recess to get a deal, the signs have been far from promising. Last week, House Budget Committee approved the plan by a 20-16 vote, with two Republicans joining all 14 Democrats in opposition.
The conservative House Freedom Caucus remains opposed to the Committee-passed FY 2017 Budget plan because it has a discretionary spending cap of $1.07 billion, which is $30 billion above what would be allowed under the deficit-cutting Budget Control Act, which was enacted in 2011. Instead, the FY 2017 House Budget uses a higher limit was first negotiated under a two-year bipartisan budget deal enacted last year under former-Speaker John Boehner.
House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA) had tried to broker a compromise to the higher discretionary levels by coupling the additional $30 billion in discretionary funding with consideration of separate legislation that would cut entitlement programs by $30 billion over two years. However, House Conservatives refused the offer and expressed skepticism that any legislation containing entitlement cuts would ever pass, particularly in the filibuster-prone Senate. Additionally, House Democrats denounced the effort to cut entitlements such as Medicare as a betrayal of last year’s bipartisan deal.
Strong and public opposition by the Freedom Caucus has forced House Republican leadership to postpone a House floor vote, knowing they lack the 218 votes needed to ensure its success — nearly with all House Democrats and nearly forty Freedom Caucus members in opposition.
While the House Republican leadership remains hopeful at brokering a budget deal, a lesser version of an official budget, known as a deeming resolution, would set a simple topline discretionary spending limits could be used and would allow the Appropriations committees to ascertain their discretionary spending limits known as 302(b)s for the 12 respective, annual appropriations bills. However, a deeming resolution would likely need support from Democrats to pass.
Meanwhile, given the budget agreement reached least year, an official FY 2017 budget is unnecessary for topline, overall spending levels, but the discretionary spending levels for the individual 12 respective appropriations bills remain in question, which is the reason for the FY 2017 budget.
There has been discussion about proceeding to the annual appropriations bills without any enforceable spending limits, such as an official budget or a deeming resolution. However, doing so is unprecedented .
Meanwhile, House Appropriators are moving forward without an official FY 2017 Budget and released the text of the FY 2017 Military Construction-VA bill today. The measure provides $81.6 billion in discretionary funding. The bill provides $7.9 billion for military construction projects and $176.1 billion in mandatory and discretionary funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Markup of the bill is scheduled for Wednesday by the Military Construction-VA Subcommittee and will kick off legislative action on the 12 appropriations for FY 2017.