When the House Republican military hawks stood up, Roswell Republican Rep. Tom Price slid more money for the Pentagon into a war funding account.
When Senate Republicans balked at a Medicare overhaul, Price agreed to leave it out of the bicameral budget agreement.
And when the House voted mostly on party lines to pass the conference report on Thursday evening, Price, in his first year as committee chairman, finally had his moment.
“It really is an historic event that has occurred, with the first balanced budget agreement between the House and Senate that balances over a 10 year period of time being across the floor of the House since 2001,” Price said. “It’s a big deal.”
The deal has plenty of critics, even among those who voted for it.
It circumvents spending caps by putting nearly $100 billion in an off-budget war account, which Price said was necessary to respond to America's global threats. And it relies on convoluted "changes in mandatory programs," criticized as an accounting trick, to stay under the caps.
U.S. Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican who ran on fiscal discipline and now serves on the Budget Committee, said he will vote for the budget next week when it hits the Senate floor because it’s “a first step.”
“I held my nose and we went ahead and got through it,” Perdue said.
The newcomer was astonished that he could not get an easy answer on how much the government spent in all last year, because so much is on autopilot and out of the committee’s purview.
“I was disappointed,” Perdue said. “But at the same time, my expectation is, as a business guy, I know when you have a problem this big, you don’t get it all solved in the first 100 days.”
A budget is a document of grand vision – and Price's blueprint proposed massive changes in major federal government functions – but its power comes in two smaller ways.
The first is to set next year’s spending levels for the appropriations committees to fill in the details. The second is to direct how to accomplish fiscal goals through the “budget reconciliation” process – by which certain bills can clear the Senate with 51 votes and avoid a filibuster.
It was used to pass the health care law known as Obamacare in 2010. Republicans now intend to use it to repeal the law, or at least send a repeal to President Barack Obama’s desk for a sure veto. Price had started by allowing possibilities for reconciliation to attack just about any area of the budget, but the final version is Obamacare-focused.
“In consultation with the Senate, it was felt this was the best way to proceed,” Price said.
It’s a typical answer for the orthopedic surgeon first elected to Congress in 2004 and known for his ambition and discipline.
Rep. Rob Woodall, a Lawrenceville Republican who also serves on the budget committee, praised Price’s equanimity in the chairman’s seat, which he inherited from high-profile Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
“You didn’t see any effort for him to be on the front page day in and day out,” Woodall said. “He wasn’t trying to throw anybody else under the bus. …
“So when he had to move some things around from within, that’s what a conversation does. That’s what a team sport is.”
The team, in this case, was entirely Republican. Democrats did not have input on the document that needed only Republican votes in both chambers.
Democrats rejected the trillions in spending cuts – the budget calls for $5 trillion in savings over 10 years compared to the current path, without raising taxes – and said Republicans must look at increasing taxes as part of a deficit reduction package. They also accused the GOP of chicanery for proposing to repeal Obamacare while keeping its tax revenue to help balance the books.
Rep. David Scott, an Atlanta Democrat, said he would not consider voting for the budget plan because it was “too extreme.”
On a mostly vacant House floor Thursday, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., wound up his denunciations of the “failed theory” of “trickle-down economics” behind the Republican budget, as Price sat expressionless and took notes.
The only time Price’s voice rose in reply was a cry of “Nonsense!” to Democrats’ charges that Republicans wanted to take away health care from millions by repealing Obamacare. Price vowed that the GOP would put in place “patient-centered reforms” instead.
A few minutes later, the budget passed, but its spending framework was already showing signs of strain.
A usually bipartisan spending bill on military construction and veterans' programs passed the House later Thursday on a mostly party line vote – with VA Secretary Robert McDonald whipping Democrats against it, because his department would be squeezed under the budget caps. Obama has threatened a veto.
Price said he hoped to work with Democrats to exchange savings from mandatory programs such as Medicare and food stamps for more discretionary money for veterans and other programs. The original intent of the "sequester" cuts in the 2011 Budget Control Act was, similarly, to force some other agreement by Congress, but gridlock allowed the ax to fall.
In the ensuing years, deficits have fallen and lawmakers have treated them with less urgency. A bipartisan fix for Medicare physician payments this year actually increased long-term deficits.
If nothing else, Price said, he hoped the size and scope of the changes he laid out for a hypothetical balanced budget in nine years provide a fresh reminder of the need to wrangle the nation’s entitlement programs.
“ I think there are some (in the Obama administration) who are receptive to the idea that we have to work together,” Price said. “We’ve got to address the mandatory spending side. We can’t as a country stick our head in the sand.”
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