A coalition of moderate and conservative House Republicans Thursday vowed to oppose any supplemental spending bill that is not offset by cuts, with conservatives also blasting House GOP leaders for planning to bring a bill to the floor without cuts.
"Now is the time to hold the line on a budget agreement that we believed spent too much in the first place," House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, told reporters.
House appropriators plan to bring a disaster and defense supplemental spending bill that contains $2.5 billion in outlays and as much as $6 billion in budget authority to the floor under an open rule that would allow members to offer offsets. However, the GOP members said the bill should have the offsets when it comes to the floor. Kasich proposed taking $1 billion from defense and passing an across- the-board cut in domestic programs amounting to "a half cent of every dollar" to offset the supplemental.
Rep. Michael Castle of Delaware, one of the leaders of the GOP moderates, said his group also believes offsets should be found, although he said there might be some disagreement among Republicans about what offsets should be used.
Some conservatives attacked their leaders for allowing the bill to come to the floor. "To me, this is leadership gone bad," said Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the leaders of last year's aborted coup against Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. And Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, added, "This should not be our job up here to find the offsets," saying appropriators and GOP leaders should do that job.
Appropriations Chairman Robert Livingston, R-La., bristled when asked about Nussle's comments. "It's very easy to pontificate and proclaim that we have to do the job for him," Livingston told reporters.
Livingston said he and other Republican appropriators were unable to find the offsets so late in the fiscal year, adding that the Budget Act allows for the defense and disaster funds to be classified as emergencies. Nonetheless, he said Republicans can amend the bill to add offsets as long as they have the votes to pass an amendment on the floor.
Livingston said Kasich's suggestion of an across-the-board cut amounts to a "breach of responsibility" by Congress, adding that if Congress wants cuts, those cuts should be identified. He added that if Kasich "believes we could reduce the caps, why didn't he do it last year rather than disrupting the process halfway through the year?"
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