Ryan’s return to the Capitol Thursday punctuated the moment. | JAY WESTCOTT/POLITICO Ryan, House GOP OK spending hike

Coming full circle, the Republican-controlled House approved an across-the-board increase in domestic appropriations Thursday as part of a six month stop-gap bill to keep the government operating past Oct. 1 and into March next year.

The sums are small but the symbolism huge, and the 329-91 vote captured the wild, often dysfunctional swings of this Congress in trying to deal with budget matters and the nation’s growing debt crisis.


Just months ago, the same House GOP — led by party’s new vice presidential nominee, Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan — was charging up the hill, bent on blowing up the 2011 debt accords by cutting tens of billions more from domestic appropriations.

Yet the 29-page continuing resolution, or CR, marks a complete turnaround. It restores the higher spending targets set in the Budget Control Act — and with such haste and pique — that billions will go out without any distinction between the merits of different programs.

Labor, health and education spending that’s so often targeted for cuts by the GOP will grow by close to $1 billion. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission budget, the bane of anti-regulatory forces, inches up again, albeit far less than the White House requested.

At the same time, some agencies get more than even President Barack Obama asked for, while the Indian Health Service — a priority for both parties — will get less than both wanted.

Ryan’s return to the Capitol Thursday only punctuated the shift, and the Wisconsin lawmaker — coming and going from the back of the chamber — cast his “aye” early in a show of support with the leadership. But as many as 70 of his fellow Republicans voted no, reflecting some skittishness in the party. Democrats were more united, 164-21, in favor of the package.

The Senate must still vote next week but the CR has already been embraced by Obama under a prior agreement reached between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

For the speaker, the bottom line has been to get his troops out of town as fast as possible while averting another embarrassing shutdown crisis. Indeed, tea party leaders in Congress promoted the strategy, gambling that new cuts can be made next year if Republicans win control of the Senate and White House.

But the more Wall Street-oriented Club for Growth roundly condemned the result this week. And in their haste, Republicans added no new provisions for American farmers, already stressed by this summer’s drought and Boehner’s refusal to call up a five-year farm bill.

The new top line for non-emergency appropriations will be $1.047 trillion, an $8 billion increase over what the Congressional Budget Office estimates is the current rate of spending.

About $2 billion of the extra money would be parsed out among more than a dozen priority accounts, such as funding for new cybersecurity software to protect government computers or the improved processing of veterans benefits. Close to $800 million goes to cover wild land and forest fire-fighting costs in the West, and an estimated $132 million is added to assist refugees, with a special focus on children.

But in their desire to keep the bill simple—and move fast—Republicans opted to distribute most of the increase, $5.9 billion, through a mechanical formula that automatically ups most accounts by 0.612 percent.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers was most insistent on this approach, hoping that it will increase the pressure on Congress to take a second look at doing individual bills or an omnibus package after the election.

Indeed, the Kentucky Republican still clings to the hope of a lame duck revival. “We will not rest on our laurels,” Rogers promised the House. But there is also a downside to this mechanical formula and as a practical matter, scores of initiatives and promised new starts will be stymied.

The Defense Department, which typically escapes long CR’s, is caught most in the middle.

At one level, it benefits richly from the across-the-board increase, worth $3.1 billion to the Pentagon. That brings its base budget for 2013 to $519.9 billion, more than what was promised in the debt accords and Obama’s request.

But these dollar gains may very well be short-lived given the threat of automatic sequester cuts in January. And in the interim, the department is severely limited in its ability to enter into new contracts or multi-year procurements. Even in the case of maintaining training personnel in Iraq, the House refused to give the military the extra authority it requested and Defense must try to mitigate the situation by drawing on one of its famous “Triple E” accounts: “emergencies and extraordinary expenses.”

Taking a longer view — back to when House Republicans took power 21 months ago — total appropriations will still be on a downward path, even with the increases in the CR.

But more than half of the savings are owed to a reduction in war fighting costs overseas, which was driven by Obama more than Congress.

Coming into 2011, for example, CBO estimated that annual appropriations were running at about $1.250 trillion: $1.190 trillion in base spending plus almost $160 billion in emergency funds, chiefly for Iraq and Afghanistan. The comparable 2013 numbers for the CR now are $1.153 trillion: $1.047 trillion in base spending plus about $106 billion in disaster funding and overseas contingency appropriations, chiefly for continued military operations in Afghanistan.

That’s a real $97 billion drop, but the biggest single factor is the reduction in war costs.

In the same two year period, base defense appropriations have continued to grow — by about $11 billion. And if the Pentagon is separated from the calculations, all other non-emergency appropriations are down about $54 billion, or 9 percent, from January 2011 levels.

That is a significant reduction if maintained over time, as envisioned in the debt accords last year. But the whole exercise also shows the limits of focusing on just appropriations in any deficit reduction strategy.

For example in 2008, the last full fiscal year of President George W. Bush’s administration, total appropriations — including war funding — were $1.176 trillion. And after all the turmoil of this Congress, the framework for the new CR is just $23 billion less.