On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland mocked the bipartisan two-year federal budget deal as insufficient.
By Thursday, the Coweta County Republican was offering praise.
The reason for the switch, he said, was the persuasion of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan.
The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved a budget deal on Thursday that undoes $62 billion of across-the-board “sequestration” cuts and shaves $23 billion from future deficits. If the reluctant votes in favor of a small-scale deal were not exactly a moment of holiday cheer, they did demonstrate a big moment for the fractious, hyperpartisan House.
Conservative and liberal pressure groups denounced the deal, but did not come close to slowing the 332-94 vote. The urge to boost cut-down military and nonmilitary programs, while restarting a budget process that had been derailed for years, powered the package through.
It now goes to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where bipartisan deals have been more common this year.
Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, swayed many conservatives in the House, arguing that this was the best deal they could get in a divided government. The GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee is known for authoring budgets beloved by the conservative base that include huge spending cuts, tax cuts and large-scale reforms to entitlement programs.
This deal has none of those things.
But even next year’s increased budget cap of $1.012 trillion is still less than Ryan’s budget blueprint from two years ago.
“Paul had a meeting with a lot of the guys and tried to explain to ’em the process,” Westmoreland said. “Look, if I’m going to trust anybody up here on the budget, it’s going to be Paul Ryan.”
Many Democrats, meanwhile, unsuccessfully sought to include an extension of long-term federal unemployment benefits, which expire Dec. 28. They were not fond of making federal employees contribute more to their pensions, either.
But even U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat who boasts one of Congress’ most liberal voting records, supported the deal.
“I’m disappointed that the unemployment piece is not there, but I’m prepared to live with it,” Lewis said. “It’s a good step. We need to do something in a bipartisan fashion, and this is one way of doing something.”
Only three of 14 Georgians voted against the compromise: Republican U.S. Reps. Paul Broun of Athens, Phil Gingrey of Marietta and Jack Kingston of Savannah, all of whom are running against each other for U.S. Senate.
The pact lays out budget caps for the next two years, but the details will be filled in with appropriations bills. A new spending package must pass Congress by Jan. 15 to avoid another government shutdown.
October’s partial shutdown was caused by a dispute over the new health care law — not just spending levels — but there is less appetite among House Republicans for another fiscal standoff.
“I think the last shutdown was orchestrated by (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid and by the president, quite honestly,” said Austin Scott, a Tifton Republican. “I think they knew we would get the blame for it. I think if we have another shutdown we’ll get the blame for it again.”
Scott overcame his reluctance and backed the budget deal in part to help his military-heavy district and also to get back to the “regular order” of the budget process. Congress traditionally passes a budget to set spending levels and then individual appropriations bills.
The process hasn’t been followed for years, resulting in a jumble of stopgap spending bills. Sequestration cuts came out of an August 2011 deficit reduction deal and were designed as a last resort if a bipartisan budget deal could not come together.
Two years late, a partial one has.
“We could not find the big budget deal and for that I am deeply sorry,” U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, a Lawrenceville Republican, said in a floor speech. “I wish we could have found that. But what we did find were those areas of agreement that were available to be found.”
Conservative outside groups such as the Club For Growth, which typically have a lot of influence, attacked the deal’s structure as gimmickry: Two years of increased spending in exchange for 10 years of savings, including a hike on airline fees, that could be undone by future Congresses.
“We need to cut spending,” Kingston said, “and this legislation does not cut spending.”
But many of the chamber’s most stalwart conservatives still were swayed by Ryan. That group included U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, a Ranger Republican who was among those leading the charge to strip funding for the new health care law before the October shutdown.
“It’s a positive step when both parties agree to make government smaller and more efficient through entitlement reforms and cuts to wasteful spending,” Graves said in a statement. “The alternative is to put current law on autopilot, where a lot of savings would come from cutting defense jobs instead of cutting waste, fraud and corporate welfare.”
Included in the smorgasbord of offsets are changes in Medicaid billing and recovery of overpayments in unemployment checks, meant to crack down on waste and fraud. The deal would allow more oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and temporarily avoid a steep drop in Medicare payments for physicians.
The House also tied up a couple of loose ends Thursday, including a short-term Farm Bill extension, as it finished its business for the year. Members trickled out of the Capitol Thursday night, not planning a return until 2014.
As the budget vote ended, Ryan chatted amiably on the floor with Westmoreland and two other Georgia Republicans: U.S. Reps. Tom Price of Roswell and Doug Collins of Gainesville. The staunch conservatives all voted for the bill, and they were all grinning.
About the Author
