[Mb-civic] House Budget Measure Is Pulled - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

House Budget Measure Is Pulled
Moderates Buck GOP Leadership In Both Chambers

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A01

House Republican leaders were forced to abruptly pull their $54 billion 
budget-cutting bill off the House floor yesterday, amid growing 
dissension in Republican ranks over spending priorities, taxes, oil 
exploration and the reach of government.

A battle between House Republican conservatives and moderates over 
energy policy and federal anti-poverty and education programs left GOP 
leaders without enough votes to pass a budget measure they had framed as 
one of the most important pieces of legislation in years. Across the 
Capitol, a moderate GOP revolt in the Senate Finance Committee forced 
Republicans to postpone action on a bill to extend some of President 
Bush's most contentious tax cuts.

The twin setbacks added to growing signs that the Republican Party's 
typically lock-step discipline is cracking under the weight of Bush's 
plummeting approval ratings, Tuesday's electoral defeats and the 
increasing discontent of the American electorate. After five years of 
remarkable unity under Bush's gaze, divisions between Republican 
moderates and conservatives are threatening to paralyze the party.

"The fractures were always there. The difference was the White House was 
always able to hold them in line because of perceived power," said Tony 
Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. "After Tuesday's election, it's 'Why 
are we following these guys? They're taking us off the cliff.' "

Acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) did not dispute that.

"One of the challenges of any second-term administration is you always 
lose a certain amount of identification with the Congress, because 
everybody in the Congress in the first term knows you'll be out there in 
the next campaign with them," Blunt said in an interview yesterday. 
"Your motives are always a little more suspect when you don't have to 
face the voters again."

The House budget vote was supposed to reestablish the Republican 
commitment to a smaller government that would change the federal 
approach to Medicaid, food stamps, agriculture subsidies, student loans 
and a host of other programs.

But moderate Republicans made it clear that was not the way they wanted 
the party defined. The GOP leadership had already abandoned a provision 
in the budget that would have opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 
to oil drilling, a policy goal Bush has embraced since he came to 
office. But it was not enough to secure the votes of moderates who said 
remaining policy changes were hitting the nation's most vulnerable 
citizens just as the party was preparing another round of tax cuts that 
would benefit the most affluent.

"I've told the leadership they're asking for the dismantling of the 
Republican conference" with this budget, said Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert 
(R-N.Y.), a leading moderate. "The clear evidence from Tuesday's 
election results is that Americans are moderate. They need to start 
listening to us."

For their part, House conservatives said the leadership had erred in 
accommodating the left-leaning wing of the party on oil drilling, 
because it undermined support for the bill among staunch GOP loyalists.

"The question for the House leadership is: How far do you go in order to 
get the liberal Republican vote? Obviously, they pushed it too far," 
said House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.), who 
estimated that he and more than 25 other Republicans considered 
rejecting the budget once the leadership removed provisions to expand 
oil drilling in the Arctic and offshore. "When they pulled it out, 
[moderates] still didn't support it. And a bunch of guys elsewhere in 
the country said, 'Wait a minute. What happened to the energy?' "

House leaders said they could not corral enough votes before 
rank-and-file members needed to dash home for Veterans Day events. They 
vowed to try to pass the budget next week, but lawmakers conceded it 
will not get any easier.
(continued)...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001333.html?referrer=email
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