House Republicans are about to blow through a statutory deadline to pass an annual budget, an embarrassment for Speaker Paul Ryan that raises questions about his stewardship of the House despite his high profile on the national stage.
A day after rampant speculation forced him to call a news conference to deny he wants to run for president this year, Ryan insisted Wednesday that he hadn’t given up on the House’s obligation to pass its annual spending blueprint, even though the Friday deadline looks impossible to meet.
“You know me, I want to pass a budget,” said the Wisconsin Republican, his party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee. “I think we should pass a budget and we’re still talking with our members on how we can get that done.”
Yet success looks unlikely as the same tea party lawmakers who ousted Ryan’s predecessor, John Boehner, rebel against a bipartisan spending deal Boehner cut with President Barack Obama last fall before leaving office.
“It’s better to do no budget this year than a bad budget,” Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint said in an interview, echoing the sentiments of many conservatives in the House.
Boehner, despite his troubles with the hard-liners in his caucus, met the budget deadline each of the five years of his speakership.
The situation has left numerous House Republicans deeply frustrated. Yet Ryan himself has managed to remain popular, as all sides continue to profess admiration for his communication skills and his patient attempts to involve lawmakers in his deliberations.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said of the imminent budget failure. He praised Ryan’s style, but added: “It’s admirable in some ways but not producing results.”
Ryan, a former chairman of the House Budget Committee, repeatedly lambasted Democrats when they didn’t get budgets done while in control of Congress, even backing a law that would have cut off lawmakers’ paychecks if they failed to pass a budget.
Yet the reality is that failing to pass a budget has few real-world consequences for lawmakers, and GOP leaders in both the House and Senate are instead moving ahead with the annual spending bills that determine agency operating budgets.
That process is just getting underway, though it too could fall prey to divisions in the House. Democrats are likely to oppose many of the bills if they’re laced with conservative policy “riders,” while conservatives have problems with the spending levels.
Boehner confronted a comparable situation in 2014. It was the second year of a budget deal with Obama — negotiated by Ryan — and some conservatives were reluctant to go along with higher agency budget levels. Boehner was working with a smaller GOP majority but had an advantage since conservatives were relatively sheepish after the 2013 government shutdown that they sparked.
Now, in a hyper-polarized presidential election year — and after toppling Boehner last year — conservatives aren’t falling into line.
About the Author
