“I think we’ll be in a good place”, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, said Tuesday night. The full House will elect a new speaker on Thursday, and Boehner plans to retire on Friday. Under the plan, higher borrowing authority would be in effect until March 2017.
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“I’m very encouraged”, said Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) after Tuesday’s meeting.
The bipartisan agreement is less about money than politics.
Earlier this month, Congress passed a $612-billion NDAA that called for overhauling 20-year military pensions into a blended system that also offers 401(k)-style contributions to servicemembers when they join.
Then again, put into context, that’s a few pretty flimsy good news. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Money would be transferred among Social Security trust funds to keep disability officially solvent – a move that used to be accomplished without much objection before the more recent era of fiscally hawkish Republican majorities in the House.
This is the “clean barn” that Speaker of the House John Boehner, who is exiting the Capitol after repeated clashes with the right wing of the Republican conference, promised to leave his successor.
The 144-page deal would boost defense and domestic spending over the next two years.
Boehner is leaving Congress under pressure from conservative lawmakers angered by his history of seeking compromise and Democratic votes on issues like the budget. “Totally agree, totally agree”, the outgoing speaker said in response to Ryan’s criticism. “That’s unfortunate. But going forward, as a conference, we should have been meeting months ago to discuss these things, to have a unified strategy going forward”.
But Massie also said “it’s a long game” and conservatives are winning the war as they have forced Boehner to resign.
“This is not the way to run a railroad”, he told reporters, contending he had no other choice.
The two-year budget deal that was negotiated provides top-line spending numbers. The military’s economic impact on South Carolina has increased substantially since 2012 and now approaches $20 billion, according to a report released earlier this year. The Democrats, seen by voters as in control of the economy by virtue of having control of the White House, are happy to dodge another destabilizing standoff.
“Unlike in previous budget agreements, this was a process the president and White House was heavily engaged in”, Eric Schultz, an administration spokesman, told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Talks progressed well enough that it was determined there was no need for the president to meet face-to-face with congressional leaders. “It’s a rotten way to lead”, Salmon said. Instead, Congressional Republicans-and in particular the so-called Freedom Caucus-decided that they could live with draconian and stupidly applied cuts to the Defense budget in exchange for draconian and stupidly applied cuts to domestic programs.
An additional $32 billion in spending over the two years will come from the overseas contingency account, bringing the total package to $112 billion. The bipartisan budget deal was reached by leadership late Monday.
The budget deal would add six years to the life of the disability fund by temporarily reallocating a small portion of payroll taxes from Social Security’s retirement fund. It would also increase rebates drug manufacturers must pay to federal and state governments to cover the costs of Medicaid and change the way Medicare pays for provider services at hospital-owned doctors’ offices. Medicare Part B premiums had been scheduled to go up drastically next year. No big spike in Medicare premiums for 15 million Americans.
While Senate action is not yet nailed down and lawmakers will flirt with a November 3 deadline for raising the government’s debt limit, Congress appeared to be on a smoother track than in past years when faced with fiscal deadlines.
Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Boehner had said he wanted to “clean the barn” of politically messy issues so Ryan could make a fresh start.
“It is real savings, but it’s not something you can repeat”, said Goldwein. “There’s a question that didn’t get answered”. And what’s going to be fascinating to watch is whether he is going to become part of these deals – these kinds of deals in the future.
Representative Bill Flores of Texas, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, suggested that conservatives won’t blame Ryan for the accord. The Treasury said that “due to debt ceiling constraints, there is a risk that Treasury would not be able to settle the two-year note” on November 2.
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Of course, no one really expected Congress not to raise the debt ceiling eventually.
