'Yeah, we’re good,' said Ryan while walking into the House chamber Friday. GOP confident about Ryan's budget

Passing Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget? No sweat.

House Republican leaders said they believe they turned a corner by the end of last week, quashing opposition to the Wisconsin Republican’s 2015 budget proposal and laying the groundwork to clear one of the last major pieces of legislation before the midterm election.


After weeks of whipping, multiple senior Republican lawmakers and aides say they are in as good shape as they have ever been and believe they are close to the requisite votes for passage.

“Yeah, we’re good,” said Ryan, who chairs the House Budget Committee, while walking into the House chamber Friday.

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House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said his “only problem” is that three House Republicans from Georgia are battling one another in a Senate primary and will not vote for the budget.

“I predict a win,” McCarthy told POLITICO.

For a time last week, Ryan’s budget encountered problems as conservatives threatened to oppose the proposal to express frustration about a controversial parliamentary maneuver GOP leadership deployed to pass the “doc fix.” Though it seems that leadership has minimized the opposition, Republicans privately concede that they’ll most likely pass the 2015 budget by the slimmest margin in their four years in power.

“Look, this is all the same issues that came up in past years,” said Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), the chief deputy majority whip. “This is now viewed as something that identifies who we are. It’s strongly identified with [House Republicans]. It’ll pass.”

Ryan’s plan would cut $5 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, bringing the budget into balance by 2024, although Democrats have asserted the GOP claim is off by tens of billions of dollars.

A large portion of the savings Ryan’s budget projects comes from reducing health care coverage and subsidies under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. An additional $700 billion-plus in savings comes from slashing Medicaid and other health care programs, while hundreds of billions in additional cuts come from food stamps, education and farm programs.

Ryan would cut Obamacare benefits but retain its tax increases and reductions in payments to providers. It would also turn Medicare into a voucher program — Republicans call it “premium support” — for those who enroll in the program beginning in 2024.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his fellow Republicans have passed Ryan budgets three times since taking over the House in 2010, but it is a tougher vote this year because lower revenue forecasts have made the cuts needed to eliminate the deficit that much tougher to enact.

House Democrats will again unite in opposing the bill this year, predicted Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), which means Republicans will have to pass it on their own. “No, we’re not going to lose anybody,” Hoyer said in an interview.

Last year, 10 Republicans voted against the Ryan budget. Right now, there are 233 Republicans serving in the House; 217 votes will be needed to pass the resolution.

Since only GOP lawmakers will back the Ryan plan, the vote gives outsize influence to hard-liners inside the party. So far, they seem to be sticking with Ryan and Boehner.

“I’d like to have it balanced in nine instead of 10, because that’s what we said last year,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who said he is undecided. “But it’s a lot better than 26 years, and so I recognize Republicans need to pass a budget. You can’t bring it to the floor and let it fail. We’d hand this agenda to the other side.”

While Democrats say the 2015 budget is a political albatross, Republicans consider it a victory. “Running out the clock” has become a favorite phrase within House Republican circles.

It means, quite simply, Boehner’s majority is trying to spend the next seven months avoiding anything that could spark a political calamity. The Ryan budget is one of the few things standing in their way.

Once the House adjourns on Thursday, it’s in recess until April 28, giving members time back home to run for reelection. House GOP leaders have scheduled only 55 more days of legislating (less than two full months in session) for the year prior to Election Day, according to the House calendar issued by Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office.

The other big House news this week will be the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s vote on a contempt resolution against former IRS official Lois Lerner over her refusal to answer the panel’s questions about IRS targeting of conservative nonprofit groups.

Combined with passage of the Ryan budget, the Lerner contempt resolution will provide some political red meat for GOP conservatives to offer their base voters during the recess.

House Republicans plan to pass most, although not all, of the 12 annual appropriations bills. Senate Democrats will pass only four or five, at most, meaning a continuing resolution will have to be enacted before the Oct. 1 deadline in order to avoid a government shutdown. Both sides say that’s a foregone conclusion — as is a busy lame-duck session — with the only question being the length of the continuing resolution.

Immigration reform is not going to pass the House before Election Day, although there will be hearings over the summer. Tax reform will also get attention but is not going to pass either. Democrats will press hard for a minimum-wage increase and pay equity for women, both issues House Republicans oppose. Extending federal unemployment benefits will be a political priority for Democrats, with the Senate expected to adopt a bipartisan package this week.

All of which leaves the Ryan budget as one of the only potential stumbling blocks for Boehner and his GOP rank and file.

“I think they’ll get enough votes to pass it,” said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.).

Westmoreland noted that Ryan’s budget plan has the same “top line” spending total as the December agreement with Senate Democrats, although spending priorities are different.

Like other House Republicans, especially in the leadership, Westmoreland is aware the Georgia Senate GOP primary is causing some of his Peach State colleagues to move hard right, meaning they won’t even support the Ryan budget.

“I think at least one of them has voted for [the Ryan budget] in the past, it’s the same number,” Westmoreland noted. “But it’s the silly political season. I’m just assuming they’ll be nos.”

“If they all voted yes, they wouldn’t be able to take shots at each other,” Westmoreland added. He predicted that his three fellow Georgia Republicans — Reps. Jack Kingston, Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun — would all offer amendments to upcoming appropriations bills to further cut spending.

Gingrey is opposed to the Ryan budget, as he was last year. Gingrey complains that Ryan proposal does not do enough to remove increased taxes brought about by Obamacare, although it does repeal it.

“Really, nothing much has changed,” Gingrey said. “I’ll vote no again.”