The House voted on Wednesday to restore $510 million in grants for first responders. GOP centrists join Dems on cuts

House Democrats and more centrist Republicans joined forces in a series of spending votes Wednesday, scoring quick wins and sending the clearest sign yet of second thoughts in the GOP over the depth of reductions demanded by the party’s new tea party supporters.

In the second day of late-night debate, Republican freshmen again captured the headlines — tipping the scales against a costly Pentagon engine program that was the subject of fierce Washington lobbying in the prior Congress. But the re-emergence of the centrists is telling, putting the brakes on further domestic cuts and helping to restore programs backed by the White House.


Sixty-eight Republicans, backed Democrats in defense of preserving at least reduced funding for legal aid to the poor, for example. Minutes later, 70 Republicans joined 158 Democrats on a 228-203 vote that restored $280 million for the Community Oriented Policing Services or COPS program, a favorite initiative of Vice President Joe Biden. And given the power of the firefighter lobby, the dike seemed to break when as many as 132 Republicans backed an amendment by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) to restore $510 million for Homeland Security grants for first responders.

Under the rules of debate, any increase must be matched by cuts elsewhere, but Democrats saw the victories as important nonetheless as a statement of their priorities.

“Do I like the idea we have to take it from NASA space exploration? I don’t know any of the crime statistics on Mars, and I’m interested, but it’s a bad choice,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who sponsored the COPS amendment. “In a way, I’m playing the game, too. I’m taking from one place to give to another. But I do believe it’s in the interest of all of us to try to set these priorities straight.”

Working late into Wednesday night, the House Appropriations Committee leadership is still hopeful of completing passage and sending lawmakers home late Thursday for the Presidents Day recess. But literally hundreds of amendments remain, and the Republican leaders will need some of their muscle to meet this recess schedule.

On the second anniversary of President Barack Obama’s giant 2009 stimulus bill, the $60 billion-plus package of spending cuts underscores the changed environment in Washington. And even as Senate Democrats allied themselves with Obama’s five-year spending freeze, their emphasis was that these new limits truly constitute a cap for the party — “the minimum” savings Democrats will try to achieve, said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Wednesday’s vote on the Pentagon engine program followed years of lobbying by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, seeking to maintain their lock on hundreds of millions of dollars each year to develop an alternate engine for the multibillion-dollar F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Just last May, GE easily prevailed in a 231-193 vote in the House, but Wednesday’s result, 233-192, was the mirror opposite, with well over half the Republican freshmen lining up to help cut the $450 million at stake.

United Technologies, the chief engine contractor and a fiercely jealous rival, was clearly a factor, too, behind Rep. John Larson (D-Conn). But the story lay more on the Republican side.

In the May vote, just 57 Republicans voted against GE, which has powerful allies in the Ohio home state delegation of new GOP Speaker John Boehner. By comparison, 110 Republicans went against GE on Wednesday — a victory for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has long argued that the investment was too costly at a time of more competition for defense dollars.

“He understands this afternoon’s vote is but one step, although a very important one on the path to ensuring that we stop spending limited dollars on unwanted and unneeded defense programs,” a Pentagon spokesman said.

Quick assumptions about this freshman class, however, can also be a mistake; it is too big, too diverse to be easily typecast. The same new Arkansas Republicans, who opposed the new engine, were willing to stand up against an amendment that would have decimated the Legal Services Corp. And as the floor debate grinds on, regional interests also emerge, as seen in the fight over the firefighter and COPS funding votes.

Among Democrats, the pressure for domestic spending reductions has increased agitation over the cost of overseas wars. But back-to-back amendments seeking to cut aid for Iraq and Afghanistan both failed by better than 2-1 margins.

“If we are going to be cutting Pell Grants and energy research and heating assistance for families here in the United States, we certainly should take a hard look,” said Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), who argued for the cut in aid to Iraq security forces. “Would taxpayers want their dollars to go to pay for Iraqi police on the streets of Baghdad when we are cutting funding for police in Trenton, N.J., and other cities and towns across our nation?”

But his amendment failed 299-133, with just 16 Republicans supporting the reduction.