Complete Consideration of H.Con.Res. 71 – Fiscal Year 2018 Republican Budget Resolution (Rep. Black – Budget). The FY18 Republican Budget Resolution is a cynical use of the budget process to advance a partisan effort on tax reform. House Republicans are bringing this budget to the Floor, nearly six months after the statutory deadline and several days into the new fiscal year that the budget is supposed to govern, primarily for the purpose of setting up expedited “budget reconciliation” procedures to force through partisan tax cuts for the wealthy.
This budget resolution provides reconciliation instructions for tax reform that is deficit neutral –as well as instructions for at least $203 billion in mandatory spending cuts spread across 11 authorizing committees. While this budget was reported by the House Budget Committee in July, this week the Senate Budget Committee is marking up a budget resolution that must be conferenced with the House’s in order to allow for reconciliation’s privileged process. That Senate budget allows tax cuts under reconciliation to explode deficits by $1.5 trillion, and the recent tax plan released by the Administration, House, and Senate leaders is projected to balloon the deficit by $2.4 trillion, primarily due to tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
The Republican budget largely prioritizes similar partisan policies to those in previous years. It claims to balance in ten years (FY27), continuing the approach of claiming to reduce the deficit through a massive package of $5.4 trillion in substantially unspecified spending cuts, magic asterisks, and phantom assumptions about economic dividends. It incorporates a $487 billion cut to the Medicare program, eliminating the Medicare guarantee. It assumes that House Republicans’ “repeal and replace” plan, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), is enacted, along with its 23 million Americans kicked off their health insurance and elimination of protections like those for preexisting conditions. The budget includes the AHCA’s $1 trillion cut to Medicaid, plus another $114 billion in cuts to that program. It goes on to claim $2.5 trillion in “other mandatory” cuts while giving few specifics on how such programs would be cut by 43%. The final touch is an unsubstantiated assumption that this budget has just the right mix of policies to spur economic growth such that another $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction will materialize.
For FY18 appropriations, it increases defense spending by $72.5 billion above the Budget Control Act’s (BCA) sequester level spending cap, bringing the total to $621.5 billion (excluding Overseas Contingency Operations spending). Not only does it fail to meet the parity test for nondefense sequester relief this year, but it cuts $5 billion below the nondefense appropriations cap in the BCA, bringing the total allocation to $511 billion. The growth in defense spending and decrease in nondefense spending continues at such a rate that the ten year increase is nearly $929 billion in defense discretionary, alongside a $1.3 trillion cut in nondefense discretionary.
This budget rejects a balanced approach to achieving fiscal sustainability. It is not a serious effort at budgeting, but is intended to get Republicans and President Trump one step closer to a desperately needed win on deficit-increasing tax reform after their repeated failures to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Members are urged to VOTE NO on H.Con.Res. 71.
The Rule, which was adopted on Wednesday, makes in order the two following remaining amendments in the nature of substitutes and provides for ten minutes of final general debate time controlled by the Budget Committee upon the conclusion of amendment consideration. McClintock/Walker Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute (30 minutes of debate)
Yarmuth Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute (30 minutes of debate)
Bill Text for H.Con.Res. 71:
PDF Version
Background for H.Con.Res. 71:
House Report (HTML Version)
House Report (PDF Version)
Summary of Substitute Amendments |