WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday adopted a compromise GOP budget that promises to speed repeal of the President Barack Obama’s health care law while giving the Pentagon an additional $38 billion next year.
The 226-197 vote sends the non-binding budget plan to the Senate for a vote next week. It promises to balance the budget in nine years with more than $5 trillion in spending cuts, though Republicans make clear they aren’t interested in actually imposing controversial cuts to programs like Medicare, food stamps, Pell Grants or the traditional Medicaid program with follow-up legislation.
Instead, the House-Senate budget framework increases spending in the near term by padding war accounts by almost $40 billion next year. And Senate Republicans skittish over politically dangerous cuts to Medicare blocked a House move that called for giving subsidies to future retirees to purchase health insurance on the open market instead of a guaranteed package of Medicare coverage.
Under Washington’s arcane budget process, lawmakers first adopt a budget that’s essentially a visionary document and follow it up with binding legislation to set agency budgets, cut or raise taxes, and make changes to so-called mandatory programs like Medicare and food stamps, whose budgets run as if on autopilot.
Republicans tout the long-term economic benefits of a balanced budget and say it’s better to tackle the long-term financial problems of programs like Medicare and Medicaid sooner rather than later.
Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., said the GOP plan “will not only get Washington’s fiscal house in order but pave the way for stronger economic growth, more jobs and more opportunity. It invests in our nation’s priorities, ensures a strong national defense and saves and strengthens and protects important programs like Medicare and Social Security.”
But Democrats say the GOP plan unfairly targets the middle class and the poor while leaving in place lucrative tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.
White House budget director Shaun Donovan dissected the measure in a blog post that noted $600 billion in cuts from “income security” programs like nutrition assistance, cash assistance to low-income seniors and people with disabilities, and refundable tax credits for the working poor. Donovan also pointed out cuts to Pell grants for disadvantaged college students while noting that its relief for the Pentagon is temporary.
This year, Republicans are focused mostly on finally delivering legislation to President Barack Obama that would repeal the bulk of his signature health care law. Successful action on Thursday’s budget plan would permit a health care repeal to advance through the Senate without threat of a Democratic filibuster. Obama is sure to veto the measure, which is scheduled to advance by late July.
While assuming expiration of health insurance subsidies and repeal of the expansion of Medicaid coverage under the health care law, the measure promises balance over the coming decade by relying on about $2 trillion worth of cuts to health care providers and tax revenues consistent with levels in place after the 2010 health care law. Republicans promise to repeal the Obamacare tax increases but don’t say how they’ll replace the revenue.
“The Affordable Care Act is still here, the revenue is still here, and the Republican budget assumes that revenue for the purpose of achieving balance,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “That leaves people’s heads spinning and it means the budget is not in balance.”
Separately, the House moved ahead on spending bills for the departments of Veterans Affairs and Energy. Both measures face veto threats because they fall short of Obama’s budget request, even as Republicans are skirting next year’s budget limits on the Pentagon by $38 billion by padding off-budget war accounts. Only 19 Democrats voted for the veterans measure Thursday in a 255-163 tally that fell short of the two-thirds required to overcome a veto.
