House panel passes GOP budget amid rancor over defense spending

The House Budget Committee on Thursday morning passed the GOP’s 2016 spending proposal on a straight party line vote, but only after Republican leaders delayed their plan to dramatically boost Pentagon spending.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders, in an effort to win support for the budget resolution from defense hawks, want to pump tens of billions of dollars in new funds into the “Global War on Terror” without reducing spending elsewhere, a move that would increase the deficit.


But fiscal conservatives on the Budget Committee balked at leadership’s efforts on Wednesday night, leading to an embarrassing episode as House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tried — and failed — to win their support.

After Boehner and other leaders huddled with Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Armed Services Committee Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) for an hour on Thursday morning, leadership went with another plan — move the resolution through the Budget panel first without the additional defense money, and then add the Pentagon funding back via the Rules Committee, before the proposal hits the House floor next week.

Price was then able to pass the budget resolution through his panel with unanimous GOP support, and united Democratic opposition. The vote was 22-13.

“The House Budget Committee has taken a strong step forward in addressing the nation’s fiscal and economic challenges,” Price said in a statement. “The committee’s approval of our balanced budget proposal follows months of honest discussion and debate by our members in consultation with our colleagues in the House to put forth a package of positive solutions.”

Boehner later told reporters that leadership would add the additional $20 billion in defense funding in Rules. Without that additional money, defense hawks won’t support the budget plan, a potential political disaster for Boehner, McCarthy and top Republicans.

Thornberry predicted that defense hawks would eventually back the budget plan, but the difficulty that leadership has had in walking the line between that faction and fiscal conservatives demonstrates just how hard Boehner has to work to do anything at all.

“I think at the end of the day, the national security folks are going to support this budget,” said House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry of Texas said. “How’s that’s all going to happen, I’m going to leave that to Chairman Price because it’s his product.”

On Wednesday night, McCarthy made a personal visit to the Budget Committee late in the night to try to break the impasse but was rebuffed. That came after Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) had assured his fellow GOP leaders that the amendment would succeed.

Price had warned House leaders that the amendment did not have the votes to pass, but leadership went ahead with the amendment anyway, Republicans sources said. GOP Reps. Dave Brat of Virginia, Gary Palmer of Alabama, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Alex Mooney of West Virginia, Tom McClintock of California and Mark Sanford of South Carolina were among the members who raised concerns about the leadership plan, the sources said.

Failing to pass a budget would be cataclysmic for Republicans, and would prove once again that they have difficulty with some of the basic functions of governing. Senior GOP lawmakers and aides say House leaders are nowhere near the 217 votes they need to pass the budget at this time. McCarthy is spearheading the effort to get the measure through the House, and he and Scalise will make a “full-court press” in coming days in a bid to win support for the proposal.