WASHINGTON (AP) – House Republicans embraced a new leader Wednesday and swiftly consented to a major budget-and-debt deal to avert a federal financial crisis, highlights of a day of dramatic fresh starts at the Capitol after years of division and disarray. One Freedom Caucus leader, Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, said conservatives expect Ryan to alter that. “In an era of divided government, that’s the reality we find ourselves in”. Ryan received 200 votes and Webster 43.
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“We believe that the country is on the wrong track, we think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and we have an obligation here in the people’s House to do the people’s business, to give this country a better way forward, to give this country an alternative”, he said. But it hasn’t. For all the theorizing House Republicans have done on the subjects of Medicare and Medicaid costs, they’ve not tried to implement the overhauls they’ve suggested in their annual budget resolutions.
“I have no intention of doing anything”, Reid said.
Boehner (R-Ohio) casts his last vote Thursday, he leaves behind three other party leaders he knows all too well.
The agreement would essentially end the often contentious budget battles between congressional Republicans and President Obama by pushing the next round of fiscal decision making past the 2016 election when there will be a new Congress and White House occupant. “I gave him a few ideas about how to juice it up a little bit, ” Boehner recalled Wednesday of his 2008 talks with McConnell.
Webster, a third-term congressman who was previously the speaker of the Florida House, didn’t immediately say whether he would drop out of the running before the election on the House floor.
“I don’t really want them to nominate me”, he said of those who had supported him.
Ryan said in a statement ahead of the speaker vote that while he disapproved of the closed-door dealings that yielded the agreement, he would ultimately support it.
“Most people are understanding that this deal is a product of the old speaker”, said Salmon. Rand Paul has promised to filibuster the legislation, but Senate Republican leaders were “confident” they could push the measure to Obama’s desk.
The bill moves to the Senate, where it is expected to pass before Tuesday’s deadline, when the nation’s borrowing authority expires.
Approval would reduce the chance of partisan fights cascading into a federal shutdown or default, a relief to Republicans fearing such events would alienate voters.
The accord also became a punching bag for GOP presidential candidates, including Sens. That shouldn’t much of be a problem, but the point is, Ryan said last week that he’d only pursue the office if his party, en masse, rallied behind him.
“The selection of Paul Ryan as our next Speaker marks an important step toward unifying our Conference”, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said. Conservatives loudly protested the price tag and a secretive, back-room process, and farm-state Republicans raised alarms about cuts to federal crop insurance programs.
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The agreement would lift the so-called sequester spending caps to increase discretionary spending by about $80 billion over two years, an amount that would be split equally among defense and domestic programs.
