Speaker John Boehner’s newest tack is to go big.

Over the next week, the Ohio Republican and his top lieutenants plan to jam two big-ticket items through the House — a show of strength for a leadership team stung by a string a defeats and facing doubts about whether it even can govern.


First, to get a budget approved, the Republican leaders intend to employ a parliamentary maneuver to boost defense spending by $20 billion without any corresponding spending cuts. They’re betting the move will help break a stalemate between fiscal hardliners and defense hawks.

Within days of that, the GOP leaders will try to pass a permanent fix to the “Sustainable Growth Rate,” a formula by which the federal government reimburses doctors who serve Medicare patients.

If they’re able to clear the two measures, a battered leadership will go into the Easter recess with some pep in its step, as it tries to extend highway funding, begin work on annual appropriations bills and raise the debt ceiling. Not to mention, passing a budget will give Congress the ability to start a budget negotiation process with the Senate.

Whipsawed over the past several years by its rank-and-file, especially the most hard-core conservatives, GOP leaders appear determined to take charge. Boehner and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have divvied up responsibility for the two major pieces of legislation. Boehner is working to ensure passage of the so-called “doc-fix” package, while McCarthy — with a lot of help from Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and his whip team — is overseeing work on the budget resolution, according to GOP leadership aides. The leadership even was prepared to take control of the budget, if new Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) resisted changes to defense spending.

Of course, this can all blow up in Boehner’s face, as carefully laid plans frequently have before. Outside conservative groups, including Heritage Action — citing information from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — are already agitating against the Medicare reimbursement deal, claiming it will increase the deficit by $400 billion over the next two decades, far more than Boehner is asserting.

And fiscal conservatives are fuming about busting spending caps put into law four years ago to preclude these kinds of maneuvers. Boehner, though, needs to placate dozens of defense hawks, who have threatened to oppose the budget resolution unless the Pentagon gets billions of dollars more than President Barack Obama has sought. Deficit hardliners want to cut the budget somewhere else to offset any defense bump.

“It’s a $3.8 trillion budget,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, a California conservative who serves on the Budget Committee?. “We ought to be able to find $20 billion to cut somewhere.”

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas), a vocal critic of Boehner, joked about the Ohio Republican’s “joint speakership” with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), pointing to the speaker’s negotiations with the minority leader to resolve the doctor reimbursement issue and, earlier this month, to break the impasse over Department of Homeland Security funding.

Huelskamp said Republicans can’t argue they’re serious about cutting spending when spending would actually rise under the current GOP plan.

“Talking to some of my fellow conservatives, I said, ‘How do we tell Democrats we’re serious about cutting spending when our spending will bulk up when we’re going to cut their [programs]?” Huelskamp said. “My worry is that … we’re going to break open the budget caps. That’s what we’re doing.”

Boehner, though, is vowing to push on, and he figures he can pick up more defense hawks than he will lose fiscal conservatives. With 245 House Republicans, Boehner had a 28-vote margin to play with heading into next week, and GOP insiders appear confident — for the moment — that they can get there.

But it hasn’t always been pretty. On Wednesday night, Republican leaders went through an embarrassing episode during the Budget Committee’s markup of the 2016 resolution, as fiscal hardliners refused to sign off on the leadership plan to add $20 billion in defense funds without spending cuts. Price warned GOP leaders that there could be a revolt on his panel over the plan, despite Scalise’s assurances that it could pass. McCarthy made a late-night appearance at the budget panel, but it didn’t change the outcome. Price was forced to adjourn the meeting for the night.

Following a leadership meeting with Price on Thursday, the decision was made to add the defense funds later in the process, when the Rules Committee will take up the resolution. Defense hawks were pleased, and fiscal conservatives on the Budget Committee had nothing to complain about yet. The resolution passed on a 22-13 vote, with all Republicans on the panel supporting it, and heads to the floor next week.

“Chairman Price and the Budget Committee have done good work,” Boehner told reporters afterward. “But in consultation with Mr. Price and the Budget Committee, we agreed this morning that the rule will reflect a higher overseas contingency account number [for defense] to reflect the wishes of a large majority of our members.”

Over in the Senate, Republicans are steering their budget closer to the House version. Before approving their overall budget on a party line vote Thursday, the Senate Budget Committee adopted an amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that would add $38 billion in emergency war spending. Senate leaders, much like in the House, are hoping the additional defense dollars will satisfy military hawks without alienating too many fiscal conservatives and imperiling a broader budget deal.

As for permanently addressing the so-called “doc fix,” Boehner saw a once-in-a-generation chance to dispense with the messy fight. He locked arms with Pelosi, and didn’t seem to mind the fire from the right.

“There was an opportunity that presented itself to work in a bipartisan way to find the appropriate spending offsets, and the door opened and I decided to walk in,” Boehner said.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior member of the Budget Committee who is close to leadership, defended Boehner’s approach to the doctor reimbursement bill and the budget resolution.

“Every budget – our budget, the Senate’s budget when they get one done, the president’s budget – are the opening position in negotiations,” Cole said. “So if you look at it that way, obviously you want to bring your side together.”

Cole added, “I think deficits are easy to determine in the rear-view mirror than they are looking forward.”