Conservatives fume over budget deal
Bill makes Obama look thrifty, critics complain
WASHINGTON – Fiscal conservatives are getting boxed out of the bipartisan spending deal Congress hopes to vote on Friday, and they said Republican leaders didn’t even try to get their vote.
“I think that this is ultimately a deal that makes us weaker as a civilization,” Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., told USA TODAY. “It makes President Obama look like a master of financial restraint.”
“I think saying we got screwed is putting it diplomatically,” fumed Jason Pye, vice president of legislative affairs for FreedomWorks, a Washington advocacy group aligned with the Tea Party.
Bipartisan Senate leaders unveiled a massive spending bill Wednesday that would eliminate strict budget caps set up in 2011 and boost federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Of the more than $450 billion increase, $165 billion would be Defense Department spending — which conservatives like — but an additional $131 billion would go to domestic spending, and $160 billion would go to “emergency” funds that don’t count under budget caps. Fiscal hawks criticized the nondefense numbers as unnecessary spending that would balloon the deficit.
Another thing that makes conservatives squirm: The deal includes a oneyear suspension of the debt limit — the amount the U.S. Treasury can borrow to pay the nation’s bills — without any spending changes.
“I don’t know what (the Republicans are) thinking politically because if both parties are just going to be spendthrifts, then what differentiates them?” said Leslie Paige, vice president of Citizens Against Government Waste. The GOP has given away its one “identity card” by backing this bill, she said.
“I will not vote for it. I love bipartisanship, as you know, but the problem is the only time we discover bipartisanship is when we spend more money,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said Thursday morning.
Even without Flake — and a number of other fiscal conservatives and liberal Democrats — the Senate is likely to pass the legislation, though there are a number of procedural hurdles yet to be completed. The bill’s chances in the House are unclear.
Wednesday night, the conservative House Freedom Caucus announced it opposed the deal because it “adds to the swamp instead of draining it.”
The opposition from the group ensured that House Speaker Paul Ryan, RWis., would need to get at least some Democrats on board to support the bill when it comes to the House.
“They’re cutting a deal, they’re having discussions with Democrats to support the budget effort, so they know that they’re going to lose 60 to 70 Republican votes,” Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows, R-N.C.,said Thursday.
It wasn’t clear Thursday afternoon how many Democrats would support the deal.
Many would like to see a promise that immigration legislation will be brought to the House floor. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sent a letter to colleagues urging them to use their “voice” and call for a vote on immigration legislation.