GOP to put caps on individual spending bills
Approach has been used only four times in the history of the 1974 Budget Act, most recently in 1996.
House Republican leaders are employing a little-used procedural maneuver to adopt individual spending caps for fiscal 2007 appropriations bills in the absence of an overall budget agreement.
This week, GOP leaders will begin to "deem" separate spending caps for each bill until an agreement on overall discretionary spending can be reached. The maneuver will be used Wednesday with the $18.5 billion Agriculture spending bill and continue as each appropriations bill is considered.
According to the Congressional Research Service, this approach has been used only four times in the history of the 1974 Budget Act, most recently in 1996. It gives GOP leaders breathing room as they continue to negotiate with party moderates on health and education spending.
Domestic social services funding, mostly within the Labor-HHS bill, has been the major obstacle to adoption of the fiscal 2007 budget resolution. Under the law, a budget blueprint is supposed to be in place before consideration of appropriations bills.
In the absence of a budget resolution, some provision "deeming" a discretionary spending cap must be adopted. Generally, deeming resolutions set an overall spending cap, but the CRS said there is no "specific statute or rule" governing such a mechanism and can be used "on an ad hoc basis."
The fiscal 2007 budget would set an $873 billion spending cap, but moderates are seeking an additional $3 billion for Labor-HHS programs. That has prevented both a deal on the budget resolution and a measure deeming that figure as the House's overall spending cap.
With the Labor-HHS bill not to reach the floor until late June, the use of "bill by bill" deeming resolutions would allow GOP leaders another month to negotiate with moderates.
Republican aides said they would use the early part of this week to continue to try to reach a deal on the budget resolution. During lengthy meetings between moderates and party leaders last week, it appeared that there was going to be an agreement that would pave the way for a budget vote late Thursday.
But negotiators could not quite breach remaining sticking points, centering on proposed offsets for an additional $3.1 billion in domestic spending. GOP leaders offered to cobble together a package of "non-controversial" mandatory spending cuts, including sales of minerals stockpiled by the Pentagon and closing a flood insurance loophole that accrues to beachfront vacation homeowners.
But more money would be needed to offset the entire cost, and moderates were wary that low-income benefit programs might be targeted. Also, the Senate would have to sign off on any mandatory-cut bill before additional domestic funds were freed. "Last week was really the week to do it," a GOP aide said, noting that it would be difficult now to recreate the momentum.
The Senate is moving more slowly on fiscal 2007 appropriations and faces even greater domestic spending pressures -- and more procedural hurdles to circumventing the lack of an overall budget agreement. Unless the $873 billion cap is inserted into a must-pass vehicle, such as the fiscal 2006 supplemental, the Senate's fiscal 2007 spending cap is $7 billion less, as called for in last year's budget resolution.