By Kristina Peterson
WASHINGTON -- When President Donald Trump's proposed budget was
released with fanfare last week, lawmakers were already engaged in
a debate over actual spending levels for the next fiscal year.
Republicans agree that the president's budget -- while
indicative of the White House's priorities -- can't realistically
be translated into the spending bills that keep the government
running until current funding expires at the end of September.
But they disagree internally over how to craft those spending
bills, which will need support from Democrats to avoid a partial
government shutdown on Oct. 1. The looming fiscal uncertainty adds
to the challenges Republican leaders already face trying to steer
sweeping health-care and tax legislation through Congress.
The spending debate is a recurring dilemma for lawmakers, but
they haven't had to fully wrestle with where to set overall
government spending since the fall of 2015, when former House
Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R., Ky.) and former President Barack Obama reached a
two-year budget deal to boost federal spending above limits
established in a 2011 deal that had been in effect since 2013.
That 2015 deal ends this September, leaving lawmakers grappling
with whether to leave federal spending at the limits established in
2011 or raise them, potentially adding to the federal deficit.
There is no consensus over what to do now, even among
Republicans.
"We've got defense hawks, we've got deficit hawks, we've got
moderates concerned about draconian cuts," said Rep. Steve Womack
(R., Ark.) "We've got all comers weighing in on the budget process
and -- kind of like health care -- there's no real simple
solution."
Some lawmakers say that with Republicans now in control of both
chambers of Congress and the White House, there is less reason to
look at easing the spending limits, as lawmakers did under previous
deals because of a more divided political environment.
"My concerns with the past years is that, in a bipartisan
fashion, we're kicking the can down the road and adding to the
debt," said Rep. Dave Brat (R., Va.) "When you win the House and
the Senate and the White House and you're the small-government
party...if we do more status quo, the same old thing after winning,
we're going to lose our brand in rapid order."
Still, Democrats do retain some leverage in the complex process.
A budget resolution can pass both chambers with just a simple
majority, as well as certain legislation tied it. That is the
process Republicans hope to use to pass partisan overhauls of the
health-care system and tax code. But the spending bills that
actually fund the government require 60 votes in the Senate and the
Republicans hold only 52 of the chamber's 100 seats. And then there
is Mr. Trump, who ultimately needs to sign any spending bill for it
to become law and who has proven to be an unpredictable force in
legislative affairs in the first few months of his
administration.
Mr. McConnell, the Senate leader, acknowledged that Democrats
will play a part in determining where overall spending levels will
be set for the next fiscal year.
"We'll have to negotiate the top-line with Senate Democrats, we
know that," Mr. McConnell told reporters last week. "They will not
be irrelevant in the process and, at some point here in the near
future, those discussions will begin."
Democrats used their leverage earlier this month to block Mr.
Trump from getting funding to build a wall along the Southern
border with Mexico in an interim spending bill and will try later
this summer to prevent deep spending cuts to government programs,
including student-loan programs and food stamps.
Republicans "ought to take an honest look at where we are in
some areas, " said Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) Under the current
limits, some government programs "are likely to be cut to
unacceptable levels," he said.
Some Republicans, especially those focused on the military, have
been among the most vocal champions of raising spending above the
current limits, which they say have impinged on the country's
military readiness.
"Keeping caps in place disproportionately hurts defense," said
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R., Texas).
Like many Republicans, he would like to see spending trimmed on the
big federal safety-net programs, but Mr. Trump has been unwilling
to touch Social Security or Medicare for retirees.
At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Thursday, House
Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) gave his rank and file an assessment
of the fiscal issues looming over the next few months, according to
GOP lawmakers and aides. In addition to funding the government for
the 2018 fiscal year by October, Congress will also have to raise
the federal government's borrowing limit, known as the debt
ceiling, sooner than many had expected, because tax revenue has
come in slower than anticipated.
The government officially hit its borrowing limit in mid-March,
but the Treasury Department has been employing cash-conservation
measures to keep funding itself. Analysts had expected the measures
would allow the Treasury to keep paying its bills until the fall,
but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested last week that
lawmakers should act before the end of July.
Negotiations over spending bills and the debt limit have
frequently been intertwined before, since taking steps to rein in
spending can make it easier for Republicans to vote for raising the
debt ceiling. But Republicans haven't yet coalesced around what
changes they want to make.
Mr. Ryan told reporters the House GOP was beginning its
discussions over how to approach the tricky issue as it popped up
earlier on the legislative calendar.
"We're looking at that new timetable," he said. "The debt
ceiling issue will get resolved."
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 29, 2017 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.