Boehner Tries to Serve Two Masters in Budget Deal
Thursday, March 17, 2011
By Carl Hulse, New York Times
WASHINGTON - After being granted three weeks to cut what has
been an elusive budget deal, Speaker John A. Boehner is navigating
the uncharted territory between legislative pragmatism and Tea
Party zeal.
With conservative Republican House members demonstrating
emphatically on Tuesday that they are not afraid to buck Mr.
Boehner if he strays from their exacting standards, the new speaker
and his leadership team face difficult choices as they seek to end
the first major fiscal fight of the year.
Mr. Boehner can appease his party's rebellious right wing by
insisting on the $61 billion in cuts and the multiple restraints on
Obama administration policy already approved by the House, risking
a government shutdown in early April because Senate Democrats and
the president will never accept those terms.
Or he can strike a compromise that passes with Democratic
support, as happened on Tuesday when a three-week budget bill was
approved by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats after 54
conservative Republicans rejected it as insufficient. But if he
relies too heavily on Democratic support, it could be seen as a
betrayal of the Tea Party ideology that catapulted Republicans to
the majority in November and made him House speaker.
Such is the tension that Mr. Boehner will face throughout the
112th Congress as he negotiates with a Democratic Senate and White
House while trying to manage a restless band of government-slashing
Republicans who are going to press him to hold the party line if he
values their support. Once this year's budget battle is settled,
Congress will move on to potentially bigger fights over whether to
raise the national debt limit and how to rein in the costs of
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
"Boehner has a tiger by the tail," said Representative Steny H.
Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat and a veteran
Congressional insider. "The problem with riding the tiger is you
may end up inside it."
In a sense, the defections by conservatives on Tuesday provide
Mr. Boehner with negotiating leverage when he sits down with the
White House and Senate Democrats. He can point to his restive right
flank to make the case that he will not be able to deliver
Republican votes if he gives away too much. But Democrats say the
bipartisan vote shows that it is possible to come up with a package
that is acceptable to large segments of both parties.
As they assessed the fallout from Tuesday's party split over the
short-term budget bill, top Republicans said their strategy was
essentially unchanged. They remain intent on striking an agreement
with President Obama and Senate Democrats that will keep the
government running through Sept. 30 while allowing the new House
majority to claim a deficit-cutting victory.
Mr. Boehner acknowledged as much at a party forum on job
creation on Wednesday when he noted that Republicans control only
one sliver of the government and that there are other players "we
need to deal with to keep the government open."
As they dig in for what they hope will be a final round of
negotiations, the leadership is also gaming how to sell any
compromise to House Republicans since it, by definition, will not
give them all that they want.
At the moment, both sides can see the makings of a deal that
would include $30 billion to $40 billion in cuts - not far from
where Republicans started before the freshmen clamored for steeper
reductions.
To make that figure more palatable, Mr. Boehner and other party
leaders have begun emphasizing to their colleagues how significant
such reductions would be and reminding them that the current fight
is just the first of three, with the 2012 budget and the debt-limit
increase following close behind.
By the time that House Republicans face their next spending vote
in early April, the leadership hopes to have in hand the budget
proposal being crafted by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin,
the Budget Committee chairman. That plan is expected to call for
substantial future savings that will make the $61 billion now being
debated seem like small change.
Top Republicans hope those long-term cuts will soothe lawmakers
who are unhappy with compromise, particularly the 87 Republican
freshmen who ran on a pledge to cut $100 billion in spending.
While it might be possible to split the difference on spending,
there's another factor that could cause more friction between Mr.
Boehner and his caucus. Republicans have added several
ideologically charged provisions to their budget-cutting bill in an
effort to cripple the new health care law, block new emissions
rules, limit enforcement of last year's Wall Street overhaul and to
rein in the Obama White House in other ways.
Some Republicans say they might be willing to accept smaller
cuts, but they are not budging on policies like stripping money
from the health care law. "These are principles," said
Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa.
Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate
Democrat, warned on Wednesday that the fight over the policy
"riders," as they are known, could derail a deal. "We'll have a
hard time coming to an agreement if those on the far right treat
the budget as an opportunity to enact a far-ranging social agenda,"
he said.
Republican leaders realize that a bill that stops financing for
the health care law and eliminates money for Planned Parenthood
cannot clear the Senate. But they insist that any final measure
will have to contain some policy provisions sought by Republicans,
and to bolster their case they are collecting examples of cases
when President Obama and Congressional Democrats added such
legislation to spending bills.