Corker’s vote is needed to advance the fiscal blueprint, which GOP leadership hopes to pass this week. Corker puts brakes on budget deal Rumors are flying about his reason(s) for doing so.

Sen. Bob Corker is holding up a much-awaited GOP budget deal, barring Republican leadership and top budget negotiators Monday night from filing the agreement that was weeks in the making, his office confirmed to POLITICO.

The Tennessee Republican said on Tuesday it was because of “policy issues on the budget” but would not elaborate. However, Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said GOP leadership was talking to members about the holdup and thought it had to do with Corker’s opposition to a budgeting tactic that lets appropriators claim savings from some mandatory programs, a move many consider a gimmick.


Corker’s office would not confirm that, however. His refusal to sign on to the deal stops the agreement for the time being. Budget negotiators had wanted to announce the deal Monday night.

The topic will take center stage at the Republican caucus luncheon Tuesday.

Corker’s vote is needed to advance the fiscal blueprint, which GOP leadership hopes to pass this week before the House goes on recess the first week of May.

Rumors were running wild among budget followers both on and off the Hill that it could also be related to his objections to provisions in the budget that boost Pentagon spending without offsets — or even have nothing to do with the budget deal at all.

Corker disagrees with a number of budget provisions expected in the budget deal — and holding out could help increase his leverage.

The obscure provision in question has rankled the budget negotiators over the past few weeks, dividing not only the House and Senate but fiscal hawks versus appropriators.

On the Hill, it’s called changes in mandatory spending, or CHIMPS, and deficit hawks like Corker have long considered it a budget gimmick.

Although it allows appropriators to delay mandatory spending for a few years, and use the “savings” to spend more on discretionary programs, budget hawks don’t view the savings as real because the government will still have to pay for the mandatory programs sometime in the future.

Corker is a fierce critic of an appropriations budget trick that he and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) tried to restrict in the Senate budget, adding in provisions to cap it and phase it out over time. It became one of the last sticking points between negotiators and was said to still be fluid as recent as Monday, according to one GOP source following the matter.

Appropriators fought hard to get the Corker and Crapo language to rein in the practice, dropped. House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said throwing out CHIMPS would force him to cut another $20 billion from domestic programs next year when the purse strings are already tied extremely tight.

Negotiators would not say how the CHIMPS dispute would turn out Monday evening — though sources following the matter on the Hill expected a compromise, suggesting it was unlikely to affect 2016 spending bills but could be restricted at some point in the future.

The agreement that has yet to be released publicly is also said to use a war fund account to circumvent budget caps and give the Pentagon a $38 billion raise. This also irks Corker, who told POLITICO previously that the ploy is a budget “gimmick.”

“To me the [overseas contingency account] piece, I hate to be too pejorative, it’s really a slush fund.”

Others speculated it was Iran related, though Corker frowned at the suggestion and said “no, no, no.”

The Senate Foreign Relations chairman authored the Iran bill slated to hit the floor this week, which allows Congress to approve the Obama administration’s agreement with the Persian nation to freeze its weapons systems in return for sanctions relief.

Republican critics of the Iran deal are plotting to try to trample it with amendments that, if adopted, could tank the bipartisan agreement Corker carefully crafted with his Democratic counterpart, Ben Cardin (D-Md.). Corker and other supporters had made a tentative plan to band together to defeat such amendments, including one that would make Iran recognize Israel.

But POLITICO reported Monday night that GOP leadership is refusing to help the Democrats defeat them, jeopardizing the deal. Corker said earlier Monday that he hadn’t spoken to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about how to proceed on Iran amendments.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.