Tax and Appropriations
Wanted to be sure you saw today's column for the Center for American Progress’s “Talk Poverty” blog by House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, chair of the Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty, Income Inequality, and Opportunity.
House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today in response to House Republicans’ budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2017.
Speaker Ryan has been trying for weeks to rally his conference around a budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2017, with last night’s House GOP conference meeting set up to be their final pitch to the conference. How did it go? Shocker: not well. While House Republican leaders tried to sound optimistic in the press, the House Freedom Caucus has announced that it is officially opposed to the GOP proposal. Why does that matter?
This week, Speaker Ryan continues to struggle with deep divisions in his party over a path forward on a budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2017.
Speaker Ryan and House Republican leaders pitched their budget for Fiscal Year 2017 to the Republican conference this morning, reopening the bipartisan budget agreement by promising conservatives $30 billion in additional spending cuts. And if you think that means the House is any closer to considering a budget, think again. Republicans’ latest pitch didn’t seem to go over well with the conference, and the lack of specifics did nothing to appease the more hardline members of the party.
Speaker Ryan can’t unify House Republicans around a budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2017, so yesterday he called in Senator McConnell to try to talk some sense into the extreme Members of his party. A look at today’s headlines shows that it didn’t go well for him either:
The Hill: McConnell tries to sway House conservatives on budget deal
For years, Republicans have consistently said that Congress has a fundamental responsibility to pass a budget.
House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) spoke on the House Floor today in opposition to a Republican bill that intends to further politicize the paying of our nation’s bills and is not a real attempt to address the debt in a responsible way.
After Republicans added billions to the deficit when they passed their unpaid-for tax bill in December, Politico reports that the House Freedom Caucus is pushing Speaker Ryan to cut spending levels dramatically, rather than stick with the budget agreement that Republicans agreed to:
Today, President Obama unveiled his budget for Fiscal Year 2017, which reduces the deficit and puts debt on a sustainable path while laying out a vision for how we can give every American a fair shot at economic security; accelerate American innovation; and keep Americans safe.